


One of These Days

by bluepeony



Category: The Hobbit (2012) RPF
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 65,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluepeony/pseuds/bluepeony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: University student Aidan sets out to seduce his shy, dorky, mild-mannered, unbearably-sexy-yet-oblivious-to-it professor</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this prompt on the Hobbit Kink Meme and it wouldn't leave me alone until I'd filled it.
> 
> Disclaimer: Totally and utterly fake. I don't claim to know anything about the personal lives of the actors involved or the nature of their relationship.

“The North Star, of course, is a sailor's point of navigation. It's the one star in the sky that doesn't move. And like so many Romantic poets, Keats is struggling with the paradox of the desire for permanence and a world of eternity, while finding himself inhabiting a world of flux, of movement, of so-called 'progression'. But rest assured, the paradox is resolved.”

At the front of the room Dr Rihard Armitage leans against his desk and scans two gleaming eyes over his audience. The papers in his hand are right in front of him, but he is a master of the written word. He needs no papers. He closes his eyes.

“Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever... or else swoon to death.” He opens them. “Our friend Keats acknowledges that it is surely better to die young in love, than to live forever yet never love at all.”

Aidan has melted. Actually melted. Rationality has leaked out of him, collected in a puddle at his feet and begun to drip down the steps of the lecture theatre, destined to leave him forever. Even after Richard concludes the lecture, Aidan remains stuck to his seat until Russell bats him on the arm and orders him to shift.

Aidan does, but not without one last longing glance cast in the direction of his teacher. His bright star, his Polaris, his Fanny fucking Brawne.

God, listening to recitations of Coleridge last term was good enough, but this Keats stuff is practically sending Aidan into spasmodic fits of orgasm. He's never known wank fodder like it, which is perhaps a crude choice in terminology for an English undergrad but sometimes when it comes to love there's no way to be other than direct.

And so, like in every other blissful Monday, Tuesday and Thursday morning lecture this past semester, Aidan saunters very directly down the long, steep stairs and goes directly towards Richard's desk and says extremely directly to him, “Thanks,” with a smile he knows charms thousands.

With the exception, that is, of Richard, who blinks up at him as he shuffles his papers, gives a stiff little nod, and immediately looks back down again.

See, that's the thing about this bloke: when he's waxing lyrical about Keats and Wordsworth and Byron (God, never mind wank fodder, Armitage lecturing on Byron is like  _sex_ ) he's in his element, all dreamy voice and moony eyes and subconscious little swaggers that make Aidan want to ram his fist into his own mouth to stem the unholy noises yearning to seep out.

But every other time, Richard is about as confident as an untamed bunny rabbit, all shy and bumbling and oh-so-bone-meltingly polite. It only makes Aidan want him even more. That's the problem.

 

 

 

When he gets home, Dean is wrapped up in a huge double duvet on the sofa, eating tomato soup straight out of the tin. Jeremy Kyle is locked in fiery confrontation on the television, and Aidan's sure Dean is fairly naked beneath that duvet, bar his socks which are peeping out of the bottom.

Aidan slides in next to him anyway.

“Afternoon,” Dean mumbles around a mouthful of soup. He points at the screen with his spoon. “Look at these idiots.”

The screen flashes a close-up of a man with a badly shorn crew cut and more gold rings than teeth. Aidan squints at today's topic:  _Who's Father To Your Baby? Me Or My Dad?_

“Ooh, sexy.”

He toes his shoes off beneath the covers and curls up next to Dean and finds, upon closer inspection, that Dean is wearing boxer briefs after all, the yellow ones with the rooster on the front that Adam got him for Christmas. He calls them his lucky boxers. Not because he's ever actually gotten lucky whilst wearing them (not so far as Aidan is aware, anyway) but just because Dean's love for puns stretches beyond his love even for Heinz tomato soup and Flight of the Conchords.

Dean drains the last of the can and lets his spoon drop into it with a clatter. “How was your lecture then?”

“Oh, you know. Agony.”

“What did you say to him today?”

“I said 'thanks'.”

“And what did he say?”

“He didn't say anything, he just looked at me and did that little twitchy eye thing of his.”

“I'm not sure it's a good idea to be in love with someone with a twitchy eye, Aid.”

“He doesn't do it to everyone, only me. I'm taking it as a sign.”

Dean scoffs. “Of what?”

“His burning lust for me, what else? Is there any more of that soup in the cupboard?”

“No. Adam came down about ten and heated three fucking tins of the stuff and took them back upstairs. I only just managed to salvage this one, the tricksy pest.”

“Who's he making soup for at ten in the morning?”

“He brought a strange man home.” Dean tugs the duvet up over his chest apprehensively, as if about to be introduced to this strange man. “Didn't you hear them last night? They almost came through my wall, we'll never get the deposit back.”

“Ah, let him live a little. It's not oft our Adam gets a leg over.”

“Or me.”

“Or me.”

With his spare hand Dean reaches out to clap Aidan on the shoulder.

“Remember our deal, buddy,” he grins. "If we're both still single at thirty –”

“We'll shag like rabbits for the rest of our lives, yes, thank you, I remember that agreement well.”

It doesn't really stop being funny – few of their shared (and drunken) resolutions do – but it's still a bit weird, especially since he and Dean  _have_  slept together. Christ, that was how they  _met_. Eager little freshers on their second night at the Union. They did it in Dean's dorm at his halls, in his single bed. His flatmate walked in half way through. The height of passion 'twas not, especially when Aidan got an elbow to the face.

“I'm thinking of having an affair with my Photography tutor,” Dean says, out of the blue.

“Yeah? Which one's that? Ian?”

“Graham,” Dean corrects. “Ian's Art History.”

“Right. And what's so fabulous about Graham?”

“Everything? His eyes, his accent, his arms... Christ, his  _arms_ , Aid.”

“I do love a good pair of arms. You think he's up for it?”

Dean looks at him, fixing Aidan with a look just a tad too smug. “Oh yeah. Definitely. But he's married. I don't think I can sleep with a married man.”

“What, you have morals now?”

“Fuck you, Turner, I've always had morals.”

“You left your morals behind in Auckland, mate.”

“Be that as it may,” Dean admits, “he doesn't have to know that.”

He returns blankly to Jeremy Kyle for a few more moments. Crew Cut is now in the midst of pointing an accusatory finger at his "bleeping numpty" of a father, Crew Cut Sr. Ever since completing his first year of university Dean's developed a kind of complacency which results in entire days spent half-naked, watching daytime TV.

Aidan would be a hypocrite to complain about it - he's pretty lazy himself - but the difference between the two of them is that, unlike Aidan, Dean doesn't allow his sense of moral obligation to get _in the way_ of his laziness. It's very likely Dean won't go to any of his lectures this week in favour of quality television such as this.

After a while, he cocks his head to the side and fixes Aidan with a thoughtful look.

“D'you think I should?”

“What, try it on with him?” says Aidan. “No!”

“Oh, but nothing serious. I haven't gotten laid in ages, not since spotty Lot at the Camelot Christmas party last term. Besides, married or not he's obviously gay. I bet he sleeps with other students.”

“You're terrible.”

“I'm realistic,” Dean corrects. “He asked to photograph me for his next exhibition, you know.”

“No shit?”

Dean chuckles. "Yeah.”

“What did you say?”

“Said I'd think about it. Be a good opportunity, don't you think? Hey, if you do it I'll do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if you chase your poncey English lecturer I'll go after my tutor.”

Aidan allows this coy suggestion to sink in. He's used to this from Dean, these half-formed plots and absurd challenges, his favourite way to pass the time besides the Discovery channel and sleeping.

“Dean O'Gorman, you sly fox. Are you suggesting some kind of  _competition_?”

Dean shrugs. “There's nothing else to do around here. I haven't got an essay due for four weeks.”

“Christ.”

Yet Aidan finds himself considering the possibility of a little incentive. It's true 99% of Dean's racier ideas end in disaster (Aidan often harks back to the great Operation Get-Adam-Laid-by-a-Drag-Queen of last year as a case in point) but it's also true that he hates losing to Dean, which he does far too frequently for his liking. Bets on winning football teams, pub quizzes, impromptu living room wrestling matches, O'Gorman has a winning streak a mile long. People like that always need to be taken down a notch or two. What harm could it do, really?

And, of course, this time Aidan must win. Richard isn't married, first of all, and unlike Dean Aidan is aware of a little thing called “subtle sexiness”. He reckons a man who weeps over Byron's cantons would appreciate subtle sexiness. Well, rather than Dean O'Gorman's preferred method of seduction i.e. boxers with roosters on the front and awful jokes.

So Aidan turns to him. “Alright then, myou're on. Let's do it. Richard's single as far as I'm aware, so I'm bound to win.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm merely suggesting that when it comes down to it, a little thing called your 'conscience' is going to hold you back.”

Dean scoffs, putting down his soup tin to loop his arms around Aidan's neck and press a clumsy kiss to his cheek.

“Oh, Turner. You're cute when you think you're going to win.”

 

 

 

Aidan starts by switching to Richard's tutorial group, which runs on Fridays at one. Bit annoying really, since Aidan's always had Fridays completely free until now. Plus his old tutorial group had Russell in which was a laugh.

But, alas, sacrifices must be made in the face of love. He's pretty sure a poet said that at some point. Or perhaps he saw it in the collected works of Mills & Boon. He'll have to get up before midday on Fridays now, but it's surely worth it to have Shakespearean sonnets directly recited to him in that rich baritone in a mere class of five.

Richard barely looks Aidan in the eye during lectures. Now he'll have no choice.

It's fairly easy to switch groups. He sends his head of department an e-mail about how it's terribly unfortunate, sir, that he's just landed a position on the rowing team, the practices of which clash with his current tutorial time, and would it be possible to switch to Dr Richard Armitage's Friday seminar group instead?

“The rowing team practices at seven in the morning every week day,” Dean points out after Aidan's sent the e-mail. “Why didn't you just tell him you don't get on with the people in your group and it's affecting your academic performance?”

Aidan, annoyed that this would have been a better excuse, bats an arm at him.

“They'd take it up with my tutor,” he says, “and he'd tell them I always piss around with Russ.”

Anyway, Dean can shove off because the head of department e-mails back later that afternoon to say he's discussed it with Richard and it's fine, he's more than happy to take Aidan on and he wishes him every luck on the rowing team.

But it's during the evening that the really wonderful thing happens. It's around seven, and Aidan's lounging on the couch with his feet in Dean's lap, and Adam's curled up in the armchair knitting, and they're all watching Man v. Food with morbid fascination.

Aidan's got his laptop balanced on his stomach, the hum of the fan warming him nicely through his t-shirt. An e-mail alert pops up in the right-hand corner, and when Aidan opens it his heart kicks up a frantic beat.

It's from Richard himself. Christ, love declarations already?

With tingling fingers Aidan clicks it open, missing Adam Richman actually managing to complete a gargantuan meal for once. The e-mail is disappointingly brief, but love can be concise (he's pretty sure a poet said that once too).

_Hi Aidan,_

_Dr Hambleton just informed me of your switch to this Friday's seminar group. That's absolutely fine, it will be a pleasure to have you._

_I've attached the article for this week's reading ('Romanticism and Classicism') along with the assigned questions. The first essay of the semester is also due next week, though I trust you already know that!_

_Looking forward to seeing you,_

_Richard_

“Oh God.” Aidan gives it another quick read through to check he hasn't missed anything – say, an offer of a date.

“What?” Dean mumbles.

“Oh  _God_.”

“What is it?”

“Richard e-mailed me.”

“Really?” Dean sits up a little. “What does it say?”

“Says it'll be his utmost pleasure to  _have_  me, and he can't wait for Friday to come around so he can do just that.”

“Fuck off.”

“That's what it says!”

“Let me read.”

“No.” Aidan lifts the laptop away from Dean's grappling little paws. “I don't just let any old tramp read my love letters, you know.”

Adam perks up at that. “Love letters?” he echoes, still knitting away merrily. “Have you got a boyfriend, Aidan?”

“Practically, Ads.”

Dean snorts loudly. “You have  _not_  got a boyfriend, you've got a crush on a middle-aged man with a twitchy eye.”

“You've got a crush on a middle-aged man with a wife.”

“You've got crabs.”

“Only from mixing my laundry with yours.”

“So you admit you have –”

“What is going on?” Adam all but shrieks. “Have you both got yourselves boyfriends without telling me? Why didn't you tell me? Oh, you're both such tossers.”

“Cool it, kiddo, no one's getting laid any time soon,” says Dean. Then he smiles, smugly. “Well, no one in this room whose name begins with A. I, on the other hand, have made excellent progress with my side of the bet.”

“Bet?” Adam says doubtfully.

“What progress have you made?” Aidan demands. God, Dean hasn't gone and shagged his tutor  _already_  has he? He really can be the most infuriating slag of a man at times.

“Showed up early to today's tutorial and asked Graham for tips on how to improve upon my portfolio from last semester. He said he didn't know what to tell me since he wasn't sure how I  _could_  improve. Said it was near perfect.”

Aidan and Adam stare at him.

“What?” says Dean.

“That's it?” says Aidan. “That's bollocks, O'Gorman. That's nothing. Call me when you're getting chatty little e-mails with exclamation marks from him. Then I'll be impressed.”

Dean mumbles something about just where exactly Aidan can shove his e-mails and exclamation marks, but Aidan doesn't quite catch it. He settles for delivering a half-hearted shove to Dean's thigh with his foot, then settles back into the sofa and reads the e-mail again.

 

 

 

Friday can't come quick enough. Aidan's sure he's walking round with an anchor tied to his back, so slowly does the week drag. Since when did days become so long? His Tuesday morning lecture with Richard is a lovely relief, but the rest of the week is led by Professor Mark Hadlow, an unbearably,  _unbearably_  dull lecturer. He stands at the podium with his lecture written out in front of him and sticks to it, and whenever anyone asks a question, no matter how poignant or insightful, his response is always to "look in the Module Handbook". Someone could be screaming, "Fire!" and Hadlow would calmly tell them to look in the bloody Module Handbook.

So lectures hurt, to say the least. But when Friday does arrive, the sun is beating down beautifully, and Aidan takes it as a good sign. He even walks to the English building rather than taking the bus, a spring in his step the whole way there, bag bumping jauntily against his hip.

The heat makes him thirsty. He's early enough that he could stop and get a drink, but he doesn't want to waste precious minutes on something as useless as  _water_. He arrives outside the seminar room ten minutes early and knocks brightly on the door. A thrill crawls up his spine when that familiar, low voice tells him to come in.

Aidan draws his most charming smile on to his face, ruffles a hand through his untameable hair, and sticks his head round the door.

“Hiya!” he chirps. “Not too early, am I?”

Richard looks up. His blazer jacket is draped over the back of his chair. He's wearing a cornflower blue button-up shirt. Aidan decides in that very moment that cornflower blue is his prime weakness.

“Not at all,” he smiles, gesturing to an empty chair with his pen. “Come in and have a seat.”

The smile fades fast, Aidan notes, and almost immediately Richard goes back to his papers, armed with the red ink all students are sickeningly familiar with. But when Aidan sits down, his new tutor clicks his pen and sets it aside, offering another tiny smile and a little nod.

“It's nice to see a student so enthusiastic,” he says after a moment or two.

“Oh, I think I just overestimated the distance from my house to here.” Lies. “I live over towards Redgate, you see.”

_Yes, one up on O'Gorman. Already told the guy where I live._

“Oh, lovely,” Richard says politely.

Silence falls between them, and for the first time Aidan feels his confident front falter a little. He glances at the clock. Eight minutes. Still enough time to make a good impression.

“Do you, er, do you... commute?”

Richard blinks, seems almost to hesitate. “No, I live up near Hunter's Gate.”

 _Two up on O'Gorman. Found out where_  he  _lives._

“We tried to get a flat in Hunter's Gate, but my mate Adam got a bad wardennial reference for throwing up in someone's fridge.”

Aidan isn't entirely sure what made him think this might be a particularly pleasant topic of conversation, and he laughs a little too hard to mask their combined discomfort. Richard gives him a tight little smile. Aidan wants to eat his own face off.

“Since you're here early,” Richard says suddenly, cutting the silence with such abruptness that Aidan jumps, “why don't you sign your name? You've been added to the register at the bottom.”

His first name's been spelt wrong, but Aidan decides not to mention it. Richard clearly thinks him some kind of crude freak; best not to make it a petty crude freak.

He signs his name with a flourish and, upon handing the register back, opens his mouth to try and salvage the sorry situation. The door bangs inwards, and three people in too much flannel and black denim traipse in, identical thick-rimmed glasses on their noses, identical leather rucksacks bumping on their backs.

“I don't get this pastoral stuff,” one girl says in a sharp American accent, sitting herself down at Richard's right and ignoring Aidan completely.

The others ignore him too, with the exception of one boy who trails in a minute or so later in a blazer and tweed slacks and fixes Aidan with a terribly withering look, as though he's just caught him pissing in the spider plant.

At first, Aidan thinks he's upset some strange, long-established status quo within the group. He is, after all, something of an intruder at this point in the semester, even though the class only has a few weeks under its belt. But when the tutorial actually begins it becomes clear that everyone in the room – and there's only five of them – is simply clamouring for their lush tutor's attention.

Aidan spends so much time glaring at the girl opposite him that when he finally  _is_  asked a question, he has to ask Richard to repeat it. And even when he does Aidan can't answer it, and someone else soon butts in with their two cents. By the time the hour's up, Aidan's slumped down in his seat and his teacher's barely even  _looked_  at him.

He packs his stuff up with his lips on the brink of a pout. He thinks about hanging around for a bit after the others have gone, but judging by the way Richard is shrugging on his blazer it's obvious he's pretty eager to get going, too. Aidan doesn't blame him; he'd cry on the streets outside if he had to tutor  _this_  lot for a living.

“Was that okay, Aidan?”

Aidan's head snaps up, and Richard is looking at him.

“The tutorial,” he elaborates. “Were you following everything okay?”

Oh God, clearly he thinks Aidan is an  _idiot_.

“Yeah,” Aidan says quickly. “Yeah, no, it was excellent. Thank you.”

“If you find yourself getting left behind then just let me know, but every group's been covering the same material so we shouldn't be discussing anything you aren't already aware of. I trust you've made good progress on your essay?”

“Of course!”

The sheet with the essay titles on is stuffed somewhere at the bottom of Aidan's desk drawer. He's pretty sure one of the questions is about apples.

“Brilliant. I can't wait to read it.” And then Richard smiles at him, and he doesn't even do the twitchy eye, and Aidan wants to pull the guy in by his conservative navy tie and crush their lips together.

He restrains himself, just.

“Well, I can't wait to hand it in,” says Aidan. Then he wants to berate himself for being such an insufferable little suck-up. He can almost imagine Dean standing next to him, pretending to throw up.

Richard simply smiles. “Good luck with the rowing, by the way,” he says. Aidan almost trips.


	2. Chapter 2

“What's this bet then?” Adam asks round a mouthful of beans on toast.

They're in the kitchen and Aidan's making them both tea with the broken kettle. The wire's split, so they have to hold the plug in until the water's finished boiling. Dean's in the other room, Skyping with his mum. They can hear her asking when the last time he did his laundry was, and him lying about it.

“Bet?” Aidan echoes, as the kettle finally clicks. He tips it, pours water first into a Charlie Chalk mug and then into one printed with Freddy Krueger's grinning face. “What bet? Charlie or Freddy?”

“Charlie, please. The bet between you and Dean. You said there was a bet.”

“Oh,  _that_  bet.”

Adam frowns. “How many bets are you involved in at the moment?”

Aidan slides himself into the little seat opposite Adam and takes a long sip of tea, torn between truth and lie.

“Just the one,” he says finally. He hesitates. Then he shrugs. “Dean and I are probably going to sleep with our tutors.”

Adam doesn't exactly spit out his tea in one long hot spray of shock, but he puffs his cheeks out like a chipmunk and has some obvious trouble swallowing for a few moments.

“Say that again?” he says weakly.

Aidan rolls his eyes. “It's no big deal, Adam. God, it pains me how proper you are.”

“I didn't say anything!”

“You didn't need to. I can see it in your eyes, they gleam with condemnation. You disapprove.”

“Perhaps if you  _explained_  a little more...”

“What's there to explain? I like Richard. Therefore I'd like to have sex with him. And I'm pretty sure if he got his head out of Shelley's arse for one moment he'd quite like to have sex with me, too.”

“Christ, Aidan.”

“What's the issue? Dean's doing it as well.”

“Yes, but he's  _Dean_.”

Dean calls from the living room, “I heard that!”

“You can join in if you like,” Aidan tells Adam generously. “I know you want at least one of your fancy Drama lecturers. Or is it your tutor? Pace, is it?”

“Don't!” Adam squeaks.

Aidan grins behind his mug. “You're in love with him.”

“I'm not! And even if I were, I would never be so stupid as to try and sleep with him. Getting involved with staff is really serious, Aidan. You might end up jeopardising their jobs!”

“Oh give it a rest, would you? It's like having tea with your bloody mother...”

“I'm just saying, don't do anything stupid.”

“You mean fun?”

“I mean stupid, Aidan.”

Adam Brown, ever the voice of reason. Well, he thinks he is. He doesn't seem to understand that university is the only time one gets to truly indulge in one's greatest fantasies and, within reason, get away with it. Aidan has fantasies. Hell, Adam has fantasies of his own, surely. Dean definitely has fantasies. Strange, disturbing fantasies, like threesomes involving himself and Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. That's one he can't indulge in actually, but it doesn't stop him from pulling Ralph-Fiennes-as-Amon-Goeth lookalikes on nights out. So you see, university is just a world of opportunities.

Afterwards, when Aidan's upstairs and away from Adam's accusatory little glares and quips (although honestly, the guy's about as vicious as a sedated hamster), he digs his essay sheet out of the desk, stares at the questions for a while, then lays down on his unmade bed and decides to have a wank instead.

He skims his fingers down his chest, all the way to the tie on his sweatpants which he loosens slowly with someone else's fingers in mind. He closes his eyes and imagines Richard's lovely rich voice guiding him through it, muscles tight and rolling in that cornflower blue. He brings himself off in minutes. Not his highest record, but it's been a long week.

Dean comes in later and sits on the edge of Aidan's bed and talks about Graham's biceps for a long time. It's an extremely effective sedative, and Aidan soon nods off. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he finds Dean's turned the lamps off and put the duvet over him. Aidan snuggles back down into it and dreams about strange, Elysian fields.

 

 

 

_Give a close reading of 'Lamia', focusing particularly on Keats's stressing of the supreme importance of sexual love._

_Keats is_

The cursor blinks at him and Aidan stares blankly back. Dean comes in with tea and a couple of the red velvet cupcakes Adam made this morning and sets them down on top of an empty pizza box on Aidan's desk. That's Dean's job, really, besides humouring Aidan, putting up with Aidan and generally mocking Aidan: bringing him hot drinks and food.

“How's the essay going?” he asks cheerfully.

“I'm on twenty words so far,” Aidan replies.

“How many of those are the title?”

“Ah, eighteen.”

“You've been in here for two hours.”

“I know. Tragic, isn't it?” He peels back the paper on his cake and takes a massive bite, practically groaning as his teeth sink into soft sweetness. This, this cake right here, this is supreme sexual love. He and Dean have sort of got it made, living with Adam Brown.

“Which one is it?” Dean asks, snatching up the creased sheet and shoving his own cake almost completely into his mouth. “The one about apples?”

“The one about sex.”

“Ah, clever you. Woo your tutor with your honeyed words, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“I can help you answer this.”

Aidan snorts, swiftly finishes his cupcake and tosses the paper wrapping at Dean's head. “You don't know shit about anything but potato prints and pictures, O'Gorman.”

“Ouch! Ungrateful little bastard. Anyway, fuck you, I know plenty about Keats.” Dean clears his throat: “This living hand, now warm and capable of earnest grasping... I hold it towards you.”

He extends his hand and Aidan bats it away in disbelief.

“How did you know that?”

“I watched Bright Star the other day,” Dean admits, tossing the paper back onto the desk. He gives an excited little bounce on Aidan's bed. “Anyway, I didn't come in here because I want to talk about sad dead blokes or because I like you or anything. I have exciting news!”

“Oh?”

“Mhm. Friday night...”

“Mm...”

“Me, Graham, candlelit dinner.”

Aidan finally looks at him properly. “What?” Then he scoffs. “You're such a liar.”

“No, I'm not! Well...” Dean shrugs. “I have a personal tutorial with him.  _At his house_.”

“Ugh, God, I had a home tutorial last term. The third guy didn't show up so it was just me and Russ playing Junior Scrabble with Hadlow. It was the single most depressing experience of my life.”

“Yeah, but you didn't wanna rip Hadlow's pants off and have him fuck you across the butcher's block, did you?”

Aidan winces. “Christ, Dean, don't leave too much to the imagination, will you?”

“Ah, that's the problem with you English students,” says Dean, standing up to loop his arms around Aidan's neck from behind. “Always so concerned with metaphor and implication. I myself like to be a little more direct. Which I'm going to be. This Friday.  _Very_  direct.”

“Is his wife going to be there?”

Dean's gleeful expression suddenly darkens, and he unwinds his arms and sits back down.

“Doubt it. He says she's gone down south for a bit to stay with her parents.”

“He tells you about his  _marriage_?”

Dean grins again. “Jealous?”

Aidan is a little bit. He's jealous of a lot about Dean. Jealous of how he never stops eating but never puts on weight. Jealous of his boundless bags of charm, of natural flirtatiousness, of laid-back ease. Particularly bloody jealous of his clearly very close relationship with Graham.

“No,” he says stubbornly. “Richard would tell me about his marriage, I'm sure. If he, you know, actually had one. Which he doesn't. Because he's gay.”

“Graham is gay, trust me.”

“The signs say otherwise.”

Dean clearly doesn't like that one bit. “Gay people marry women all the time! Pressured by society to force themselves into loveless relationships. Haven't you seen Brokeback Mountain?”

He has seen Brokeback Mountain. The three of them watched it together, drunk, and rewound on Heath Ledger's naked arse about sixty-eight times.

“Brokeback Mountain is an out-dated drama set in the southern states in the  _sixties_. It's hardly relevant, Dean. The only people who marry for convenience nowadays are film stars and princes.”

“Everyone has their reasons,” Dean says hotly, and it's clear from the way his little fingers are gripping the bedsheets he's starting to get agitated. “Anyway, shut up! You're just being a bitch because the most you've said to _your_ tutor is that Adam puked in a fridge.”

“Hey, I didn't have to tell you about that! Don't use it against me.”

“Well! Don't keep bringing up Graham's wife.”

“I think someone being married is a little difficult to ignore. I mean, you can't actually be serious.”

Dean's expression softens slightly, like he's forgotten for a moment that the two of them are beginning to argue. Aidan's sure they are. He's getting that annoyed, fuzzy feeling in his chest and his accent's starting to thicken so badly he sounds like his dad.

“What do you mean?” Dean asks.

“Well...” Aidan sighs, and risks an incredulous smile. “You can't honestly think it's alright to get involved with a married man. Come on, Dean, that's the stuff of those shite soaps Adam watches. It was only a laugh, this bet thing. You don't _have_ to do it.”

Dean looks at him for a long time, arms folded across his chest. His brow furrows for a moment, almost like he's confused. Then he shakes his head, giving a little scoff of his own.

“You are  _such_  a wimp, Turner.”

“What?”

“So convinced you're not gonna win that you have to sabotage my chances. Don't think I don't know what you're doing. You don't care that he's married. You shagged the Dominos bloke  _twice_  last year, and he had a wife!”

“They were swingers, she didn't care!”

“That's beside the point.”

“It's really not.”

“I know Graham and you don't. I know exactly what he wants, and it's not a wife.”

“It's you, is it?”

“Yes, actually.” Dean stands up suddenly, but his tiny height means Aidan doesn't really have to crane his neck much to look at him. “And I'll prove it to you on Friday.”

“Yeah, well, I won't hold my breath, Deano.”

Dean storms across the room away from him, but at the door he stops and turns, hand gripping the frame hard.

“You're a real dick sometimes, Aidan, d'you know that?”

He goes, and Aidan pretends not to care but he does a bit. He hates arguing with Dean. It makes him feel queasy and not want to go downstairs, and it's a pretty unfamiliar sensation too because they hardly ever fight. The last time they did was almost a year ago, over the New Zealand rugby union team. Aidan said the Haka was stupid. They didn't speak for two days.

Does this mean Dean actually  _really does like_  Graham? Dean gets on with everyone – likeability must be swimming in his Kiwi blood – but it's difficult for him to find someone he actually cares about enough to have them stick around for more than a one night stand.

Maybe Dean really  _is_  going to get that one night stand on Friday. Aidan's surprised at how bothered he is by the thought. And not because it'll make him lose either. Only, maybe Adam was right. Maybe this is a stupid idea.

Then he looks back at his essay and thinks about Richard's warm blue eyes and button-up shirts, and thinks no, actually, this is quite possibly the best idea he and Dean have ever had. Aidan's never been filled with so much want, not even when he was eight years old and thought he might die without the Millennium Falcon toy with its swivelling radar dish and secret floor panel.

He's grown up now, and he still wants, and wants, and wants. Feels sick with it, in a way he hasn't even expressed to Dean.

Filled with renewed determination, he positions his fingers firmly on the keyboard. The thing is, Aidan is good at English. He dicks around a lot and skips lectures run by professors he doesn't like, and perhaps he doesn't delve into the secondary reading list as often as he should. He doesn't get all moon-eyed reciting 'She Walks in Beauty', or make frequent trips to Stratford-upon-Avon, or hurl Shakespearean insults instead of coarse Irish curses.

But he's smart, and he goes to a good university, and he  _knows_  he can impress Rihard with this essay. So he clears some space on his desk and turns off the music humming in the background, straightens his back with a gruesome click, stretches his fingers and thinks  _Lamia, Lamia, Lamia, come on, Lamia, what have you got for me?_

He writes until midnight, falls asleep at the desk with one and a half thousand words under his belt.

 

 

 

On the afternoon of their next tutorial, George – the boy with the tweed slacks – reads aloud in the droning voice of a North London bee.

“A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth –”

“Thank you, George,” Richard interrupts, turning to Aidan instead. “Aidan? Would you mind reading the last six lines?”

Aidan sits up properly in his seat and focuses his eyes on the paper in front of him. Truth be told, he's been paying more attention to the way the thin cotton of Richard's pale green button-up glides over his chest, so he doesn't really know where they are.

George rolls his mousy eyes and points out very obviously the point at which they're at, just in case their tutor doesn't already realise he hasn't been paying attention. Aidan quickly clears his throat and begins to read:

“Er... and for a woman were thou first created,  
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,  
And by addition me of thee defeated,  
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.  
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure...”

He pauses, eyes darkening as he drinks in the last line. He flicks his gaze up to Richard, surprised to find the man looking very intently back at him.

“Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure,” he grins, lowering the paper back down.

Alright, maybe he kicks up the accent a bit when he has to read out, but who can blame him? He has to flaunt his assets! English people are strange like that; they seem to think Irish accents – whether southern, northern, as soft as butter or as thick as it – are the sexiest thing on the whole of the heavenly body. Aidan can't count how many times he's pulled just from someone in a club exclaiming, “Wait, are you _Irish_?”

It seems to have worked now, too. There's a pleasingly long pause in the room after Aidan finishes, before Richard manages to blink a few times and lean back and come up with a question.

“Brilliant, thank you. And – and what's your interpretation of the sonnet as a whole?”

Aidan shifts in his seat a bit, pretending to seriously mull it over.

“Well,” he says slowly, stroking the stubble on his jaw in a way he fancies terribly brooding, “it's obviously some kind of aesthetic celebration.” He doesn't really know what he means by that, but it sounds good. “It's like he's saying that this man – and it quite obviously  _is_  a man – is as beautiful as any woman, only...” He smiles, slowly, and meets Richard dead in the eye. “Better.”

His tutor quite evidently gulps, Adam's apple bobbing smoothly, and Aidan takes it as a private victory. The American girl across from him rolls her eyes.

“It's a load of misogynistic vomit,” she says crossly, and in that moment Aidan can't stand her because her comment makes Richard tear his gaze away from him. “Shakespeare's saying all women are fickle and flirtatious and that men are flat-out better. It's totally condescending!”

Richard is professional enough to take her suggestion seriously, and turns full-body to face her, ignoring Aidan completely. Aidan tries desperately to think of something clever to say, but he's so annoyed that all he can do is huff and fidget a bit.

And then, quite wonderfully, halfway through the girl's tirade Richard subtly turns again and meets Aidan's eye, lips quirking up in a soft little smile, perhaps to show he agreed with his point all along. A warm thrill dashes up Aidan's spine, and he returns the smile feeling smug and right.

Afterwards, when the hour's up, Richard keeps them back a minute to talk about the essays they handed in two days ago.

“You're my only tutorial group, and they'll be marked soon enough. You'll get your feedback before you get your grade, and the office hour will be a week today, starting at six. It'll be up in my office. Sign up on the list outside, and we'll talk about your essays one-to-one.”

After telling his tutor very sweetly to have a nice weekend, Aidan deliberately traipses out at the back of the group, and when they're all gone he signs up for the very last slot of the office hour.


	3. Chapter 3

When Aidan gets back on Friday afternoon, the house is completely empty. He heats up the tiny amount of leftover tuna pasta bake from last night and eats it in front of the TV. There's some documentary on about Dickens and the socialist movement, limp television intended for the unemployed. Aidan watches for a bit with hopes of retaining enough information to impress Richard, but after ten minutes' close analysis on incest in 'Great Expectations', he no longer has the capacity to care.

He switches over and shouts at Deal or No Deal until Adam comes home.

“Ooh,” he says as he walks in, barely out of his coat and already glued to the TV. “Bet that one's gonna be high. Two hundred and fifty k.”

“They've already had that,” says Aidan.

“Hundred thousand then – see, look. I was right!”

Adam has three talents: acting, cooking, and guessing the boxes on Deal or No Deal.

“Did you bring any food?” Aidan asks hopefully, noticing the carrier bags clutched in Adam's hands.

“I've got stuff for a stir fry. Is Dean about? I bought fresh shrimp just for him.”

“He's having dinner with his tutor tonight.”

“Oh, bollocks. That'll go to waste, then. Seafood is ridiculously expensive, you know.”

“Take it out of the swear jar. And put a quid in while you're at it.”

“'Bollocks' is fifty pence,” Adam calls back on his way into the kitchen, followed by, “I hope it's not the tutor he's planning to sleep with.”

“It is,” says Aidan, eyes fixed back on the TV screen.

He hears the rustling of carrier bags in the kitchen stop for a moment. Then a long sigh, followed by a mumble of, “ _Such_  an idiot.”

When Aidan gets up to go and help unpack the food, Adam is already washing bean sprouts.

“Stick the hob on, would you, Aid? And get that broccoli out. Oh, and the chicken. No, wash your  _hands_  first!”

Adam pretends to be a young, trendy university student, but he possesses the hardened soul of a long-suffering mother.

 

 

 

After dinner they lounge around with the telly off, play a few games of Rummy and drink a lot of tea. Aidan loves Adam, Adam's one of his best mates, and it's nice to relax sometimes, but when Dean's not around the house can be terribly  _dull_.

Adam talks about his Drama project a lot. Aidan thinks of telling him about the office hour with Richard, but he knows Adam would only start lecturing him so he keeps quiet and deals the cards instead.

Around eight, the front door slams and someone who can only be Dean or an extremely enthusiastic burglar (it's happened before, it could happen again) stomps up the stairs.

Aidan and Adam exchange a glance over the top of their cards. It's clear they're both thinking the same thing:  _why hasn't the little bugger come in to gloat?_

Without a word Aidan drops his cards and stands up, and Adam gives him a very knowing look and says, “There's tea in the pot.”

Aidan pours some into Dean's Stormtrooper mug, grabs the least stale biscuits out of the jar and heads upstairs.

They're not exactly on speaking terms with one another yet. All week Dean has been casting him sulky looks, or smug looks, or a mixture of both. It's clear he's been waiting for some sort of apology –  _for what?_  Aidan thinks – but Aidan hasn't caved. Until now, that is. Because sometimes, when your best mate comes in after a (sort of) date and stomps up the stairs without saying hello, it's better to be the bigger man.

He knocks on Dean's door and waits. Nothing.

He tries again, going for a sing-song effect to show he has no hard feelings regarding Dean's attitude over the past week. “De-e-a-a-n?”

Still nothing. Aidan takes the lack of any words at all as an invitation to go in.

Immediately, he wishes he hadn't.

“Oh, you're crying,” he blurts out, taking a step back with one leg and a step forward with the other, and as a result creating some strange wavering dance in the middle of Dean's bedroom.

It should be stressed that Aidan Turner hates seeing his friends upset. It should also be pointed out that when people cry around him, he turns into the most awkward imbecile in the whole of the British Isles. Seriously, it's normally better if he just goes away, lest they end up weeping even more.

But it's Dean, and his big eyes are ringed with red and he's looking down at his hands in his lap, perched on the edge of his own bed like he's a guest, and Aidan can't just  _leave_  him.

He sets the mug and biscuits on the desk and carefully sits down next to him.

“What's up?” he asks softly.

Dean mumbles, “Nothing.”

“Yeah, okay. Spring allergies, right?” Very gently, Aidan nudges Dean's shoulder with his own. “Seriously, what is it?”

Dean sniffs very loudly and raises a hand to rub hard at his eye, clearly doing his absolute best to avoid Aidan's gaze.

“Everything's gone wrong,” he says thickly.

“With... Graham?” Aidan asks tentatively, and Dean nods. “What happened?”

He sort of thinks he might already know.

“I'm such an idiot,” Dean grinds out. “I messed up everything. It was all going really well, so I... I... you know, I kissed him.”

“Ah.”

“And he just looked at me like he wasn't even expecting it, like he didn't even know I liked him.” With a rather pitiful moan Dean buries his head in his hands. “I'm such a fucking loser.”

Aidan winces, thinks about putting a hand on Dean's shoulder then thinks better of it.

“What... what did he say?”

Dean sniffs. “Said he liked me and that I'm one of his favourite students, but he's married, and he's older, and he's my teacher, blah blah blah, all the usual shit.”

He says 'usual shit' as though it happens often. Aidan can only assume Dean's referring to soaps and TV movies. But Aidan has to admit, Graham kind of has a point.

“And he said...” Dean goes on after a few moments, “said he thought I'd had too much _wine_. Oh God, it's so embarrassing.”

“Come on, it's not so bad.”

“Yes, it is. He's still my tutor, how can I ever look at him again? And I like him  _so much_ , Aid, and he just...” Dean doesn't finish, opts for a frustrated little growl instead, and that, that right there, is Aidan's cue to wrap an arm around him.

Dean doesn't resist it, leans into it if anything, eyes squeezed shut with his head ducked down like he really is humiliated.

“Am I ugly?” he asks in a tiny voice. “Or stupid? I know I can be annoying, but I'm not stupid, right?”

“Dean, your photos are like... having the sun glued to your eyeball,” Aidan tells him. A true poet. Richard would be proud. “Okay, you do have your negative side, I won't lie. Like, you clean up mess on the kitchen floor with tea towels, and you literally never unload the dishwasher.”

Through his tears, Dean lets out a snort of laughter, and Aidan gives him a soft smile in return.

“And don't even get me started about the shite you watch on TV. But you're gorgeous, mate. And you're funny, and you're smart, and you don't need to waste that on someone twice your age.”

“Like you're doing, you mean?”

“That's... different.”

“How?”

_Because Richard is a fucking heaven-hued Adonis._

“Because I'm an idiot. You could have anyone you wanted, and I mean that.”

“I want  _him_.”

“Well, not him, but – anyone else, you'd be straight in there! Hey, how about we go out tonight, yeah? Me, you and Adam? Meet some new people?”

Dean sighs, scrubs a tired hand over his face. “Tonight's not a going out night, Aidan. Tonight's a stay in bed and weep night.”

“Well, alright,” says Aidan, and he brushes his knuckles against Dean's shoulder. “At least let me stay in bed with you?”

Five minutes later they're curled up under Dean's duvet eating the biscuits, and Dean's still making little snuffly noises but at least the crying's stopped. He looks across at Aidan, chewing morosely.

“Aidan?”

“Yeah?”

“I changed my mind. Tonight's a going out night.”

 

 

 

They go to The Cockpit, which is a considerably less aggressive establishment than it sounds. Quite classy, actually, as far as gay bars go in this city. Pints of lager are practically outlawed, at any rate. They grab a darkened table and Adam brings over a round of shots and three vodka cranberries, which Dean rolls his eyes at but accepts all the same.

“So what are you thinkin', Deano?” Aidan asks around the rim of his glass, the remains of the shot burning his throat pleasantly. “Split up and pair off, or the usual method?”

The usual method is for the two of them to dance in a manner both sober and provocative until somebody enticing catches sight of them. Works a darn treat.

“Eh, I think I just wanna drink tonight. I'm not really in a pulling mood, my ego's too fragile for another rejection.”

Adam, who hasn't really heard the full story, glances at him in confusion. He stays quiet though, takes a long swill from his glass and stares around the room, drinking in the sight of the hot, gyrating bodies under soft lights.

Suddenly, his eyes shine.

“Shit,” he splutters, tipping cranberry all down his chin.

Dean looks at him in annoyance, as though Adam's spilt drink on him too. “What is it?”

“Bloke from a few weeks ago,” Adam wheezes, still dabbing at himself. “Over there, by the gents.”

“The one who nearly sent you through my wall?” says Dean, glancing around now as well. “Well if you're gonna ask for a repeat performance could you at least do it at his place this time?”

“And go now while you're at it,” Aidan tells him. “He's making eyes at the barman, you'll lose out.”

Adam flushes brilliantly, gestures madly to his drink. “I've only just got here!”

Two pairs of eyes roll in unison before him.

“Adam, Adam, Adam,” says Aidan. “If you can pull while you're sober, then you fucking well pull while you're sober.”

“He might not like me sober,” Adam squeaks, but he's already sliding out of the booth.

“Go get 'em tiger!” Aidan says cheerfully, and Dean lifts a half-hearted hand in imitation of a claw by way of showing his support.

He looks absolutely miserable, and when Adam's gone Aidan turns and wraps him up in a quick hug.

“So. How many drinks is it gonna take before you dance with me?”

“Lots,” Dean mumbles.

“Then lots it shall be! Come on, you're gonna have a great time. I'll make sure of it. Hang on, I'll grab you another drink. You've made short work of that one, mate.”

He stands up, and Dean stops him with a hand on his arm.

“Aidan...” He hesitates. “Thanks. And I'm sorry. For...”

Aidan shakes his head, brushes the hand off with a smile. When he comes back with Jack and Cokes, Dean starts to perk up. By their fourth drink, he's mellowed out completely, and by the fifth he finally lets himself be led on to the dance floor.

It's a slow song – classy gay bar, after all, classy gay bar – and Aidan lets his arms hang loose around Dean's waist as they move to it.

“See anyone you like?” Aidan asks him.

“I told you, I'm not...” Dean trails off, looking over Aidan's shoulder, and after a moment or two Aidan follows his gaze to a striking man across the room, the absolute dictionary definition of 'tall, dark and handsome'.

Aidan whistles low. “Excellent taste!” For once.

But Dean just shakes his head and goes back to half-hearted dancing. He won't stop peering over Aidan's shoulder though, so often that sometimes he doesn't even notice that Aidan's speaking to him. The mystery man moves closer, and soon he's only a few feet away from them at the bar. Perhaps he can't see Dean, what with the guy being so short, but when Aidan tries to move them round for a better look Dean pulls away.

“Don't,” he says. “I know what you're trying to do, but it's fine. A guy like him would never be interested in me.” He shrugs and digs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I'm going to the bathroom, back in a minute.”

He turns and weaves through the crowds without another word, and Aidan's left standing on his own. But his mind's made up almost immediately, and as soon as Dean's out of sight Aidan turns and walks to the bar, sidles right up to the man and stands next to him, leaning into the counter top.

“Hi,” he grins.

The man looks at him. He's got wicked brown eyes and a lot of stubble.

“Hello,” he says politely, in that offhand tone of voice men in gay bars use when they want to make it immediately clear they're not interested in you.

Aidan can't be bothered to be offended.

“Listen,” he says, “my friend kind of fancies you, but he's too shy to say anything.” Shy, heartbroken, what's the difference really? “He's in the bathroom right now. If you like him, you should buy him a drink. Swear you won't regret it.”

“Right. And he asked you to say this to me, did he?”

“No. In fact, do me a favour and pretend I didn't? He'll murder me otherwise.”

The man, rather than being put off, seems utterly amused.

“I see. And what does he look like, this friend of yours?”

“Blond, pretty short, totally gorgeous. Artsy type. He'll tell you the rest.”

He winks, claps the man on the shoulder and leaves before the guy can get out another word, hoping to God it works. Perhaps it's insensitive, doing this, but Aidan's pretty tipsy at the moment and right now it doesn't seem like anything  _other_  than a good idea.

Outside in the fresh air, he immediately craves a smoke. It's not a regular habit, but he's feeling good and halfway drunk, so he produces a crumpled Embassy packet from the inside of his leather jacket.

No lighter. Balls.

He sidles up to a dark figure smoking by the door.

“Couldn't grab a light, could I, mate?”

It's the oldest trick in the book, but he'll just have to hope they don't think he's coming on to them. But the figure turns, and Aidan immediately forgets his cravings for a fag altogether.

“Richard!” he blurts out. The sharp blue eyes before him widen.

And there he is, standing in all his glory. Nothing is out of place about his hair, his eyes, his stance, but his  _clothes_  – Christ, Aidan wants this image burned into his retinas for life.

Richard is clad in dark jeans, trendy leather jacket, deep v-neck shirt. There is a  _cigarette_  glued to his bottom lip. Aidan thinks he might melt. Or faint. Or scream. Maybe all three. That'd be an interesting sight.

“You look... different!” he manages.

Slowly, Richard lifts a hand to his lips and takes the cigarette out, letting it burn blindly by his side. His eyes flit up and down slowly. “... Aidan.”

“What are you doing here?”

He _flounders_  at that. “I'm just... I was just...”

“Lost?” Aidan supplies tactfully. It feels wrong to be ignorant about these things, but the look of relief on his tutor's face is worth it.

“Lost, that's right. I'm lost.”

“Well, I'm not,” Aidan says pointedly, and he sees his chance and takes it, “but I could help you get unlost, if you like.”

Slightly drunk, and this late at night, it sounds almost erotic, and a little shiver shakes him.

“That would be great,” Richard says eventually. He gives this tight little smile and stubs his cigarette out on the ground. “You, ah, wanted a light..?”

“Yea – uh, no. No, I don't smoke, I just wanted the, er... heat.”

His own eyebrows immediately furrow at what he's just said, but never mind. Better come across as an idiot than as someone with a filthy habit. A filthy habit that his delicious lecturer apparently shares in. Aidan files that bit of information away for later. The more you know...

“So,” Aidan says pleasantly. “Towards Hunter's Gate?”

“Ah, you remembered. Yes, Hunter's Gate it is.”

Maybe it's presumptive, this, leading a man away from a place he so clearly intended to be in. But how can Aidan pass up the opportunity for, not only alone time, but  _out of hours_ alone time? When he's feeling tipsy and warm and confident enough to be bold, but not enough to say something stupid?

They begin to walk away, up the long street, and both of them glance back at the club with rather different expressions on their faces. Richard almost with hesitation, as though immediately regretting this decision to go ambling off into the night with a student, and Aidan with concern, hoping Dean has made it with Tall, Dark and Handsome.

He will have done. He's Dean. Bruises to his ego get erased faster than a scribble on an Etch A Sketch.

“So,” Aidan drawls, when the silence stretches between them for too long. “Never pegged you as a club-goer, sir.”

“Well, you know. Even stuffy lecturers have to unwind sometimes. And anyway, like I said, I was...”

“Lost, right.”

They walk a few steps further, and Aidan shoves his hands in his back pockets, biting his lip thoughtfully. He only says what he says next because of the alcohol swimming in his brain, the surreality of the situation helping rather a lot, too.

“I don't mind, though. If you're, you know, gay. Loads of staff are.”

“Well thank you, Aidan, that's very kind of you.”

“And I am.”

“Hm?”

“I'm gay.”

Richard seems to take a very deep breath at that. “Yes, I would have thought so.”

“Why?”

“Well, because...”

He gestures behind himself at the quickly fading club. His voice has taken on this stiff, tight quality, and it's so funny and so endearing that Aidan wants to push him even further.

They have to stop at a red light, and as he presses the pedestrian button he says, “You must've already known, though.”

That ruffles some feathers  _right_  up.

“I truly can't say I ever thought about it,” Richard says in one big rush that has Aidan grinning all over his face.

They cross the street, and Aidan nudges their shoulders together briefly, no fucking clue what he's doing at all but doing it anyway. Five minutes ago he was dancing with a grumpy Dean. And now...

“I thought that was all staff talked about behind closed doors, their students?”

“Well, ah. I suppose you build up a good relationship with your Ph.D students, but I must admit you undergrads all turn into something of a blur.” He stops suddenly, fixes Aidan with a very guilty look. “God, that sounds awful. I didn't mean... I remember  _you_ , of course.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, I mean, you're in my seminar group. I see you all the time.”

“Right, yeah. Course. And how am I doing? Good, satisfactory, exceeding expectations?”

Finally, Richard manages a laugh. He looks down shyly as they walk along, like his shoes are the most interesting specimens in the city.

“You're doing just fine, Aidan.”

“Great! Hey, d'you wanna come for a drink with me?”

That came out of  _nowhere_.

What's he doing? What on earth is he  _doing_? Weeks and weeks of sly 'thank you, sir's and subtle looks in lectures, vaguely smart-sounding comments in tutorials and lots of intense listening, all boiling down to this? A clumsy, tipsy blurt of, “D'you wanna come for a drink with me”?

Christ, this man does things to him. It's the leather jacket, Aidan tells himself, the fucking leather jacket.

And naturally, Richard refuses.

“Not sure that's a great idea, Aidan.”

“Oh come on. Look, I know it was a bit shit of me to lead you away from that club. You were obviously there for a reason. Don't let me ruin your night and make you go home early. Honestly, I was just getting out of the way for my friend.”

Aidan's not shutting up. Why isn't he shutting up?

“He's sort of had his heart broken, so I was trying to help him pull. I don't really wanna go back there and screw it up for him. So... I know a great pub round these parts?”

He wants to kick himself hard in the head. Repeatedly.

But Richard – lovely, sweet Dr Richard Armitage – actually looks as though he might be considering it.

In the end though, he shakes his head.

“Yeah, I just... I don't think we should do that.”

“We're not teacher and pupil, man, we're both adults.” He just referred to his lecturer as 'man'. He might as well chew his own lips off. “I mean, how old are you? Forty?”

Richard raises his eyebrows at that, even smiles a little. “I'm thirty-one, Aidan.”

“Even better! I'm twenty. Hardly owt between us.”

He sounds desperate, he sounds desperate, he needs to shut up now, now,  _now_.

“Maybe another time,” says Richard.

“Oh, Richard, you wound me.”

It feels strange to call him that out of hours. In class there's rarely any reason to call teachers by any name, but now, when it's late, and it's just the two of them, Richard's name on his tongue feels rich and dark and deeply good. He tries it again, quieter this time. “Richard. I'm sorry for ruining your night.”

They're at the turn off for Hunter's Gate now. A few steps more and he'll be gone.

“You didn't,” Richard smiles. “Truth be told, I was having a pretty miserable time before you showed up.” He gestures to the overhead sign. “Anyway, this is me, so. I'll see you in class on Monday?”

“Absolutely,” Aidan nods, and his hands are back in his front pockets now and he's backing away reluctantly. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight,” says Richard. “And Aidan?”

Aidan, having just turned around, immediately spins back again. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for...” Richard pauses, clearly choosing his words carefully. “Getting me unlost.”

And Aidan smiles at him, big and stupid, warmth sparking up in his chest. “Any time.”


	4. Chapter 4

A week later, Aidan, Dean and Adam are traipsing round a Tesco express. Adam's in the produce aisle handling armfuls of cauliflower. Dean and Aidan are ambling at a distance, loading their baskets with sweets and booze and various types of bread.  
  
“Oh, cheese twists, I love you, yes I do,” Aidan hums, tossing in a couple of packets. They're on sale because they go out of date tomorrow, but he's pretty sure he can make short work of them before then.  
  
“Move over, Aid, these ones have bacon in,” says Dean, coming up behind him and grabbing two more. “I think if I had to marry a food it'd be a two-way tie between these and sweet potato mash.”  
  
“Profound,” says Aidan, rolling his eyes. Then he thinks about it. “I'd probably go for turkey dinosaurs.”  
  
“Oh, good call. Where's Adam?”  
  
“I dunno, buying vegetables or something. Oh - cruel world of choices - Magic Stars or Jelly Beans?”  
  
“Well, Jelly Beans are disgusting, so...”  
  
“I'll get both. Oh wait, they have Haribo, too.”  
  
“Get Haribo! No, not the sour ones, you freak –”  
  
“Guys, we don't  _need_  any more sweets.”  
  
Here's Adam to wreck the day.  
  
“Look, I've got us loads of nice things and – Aidan, are you buying  _more_  cheese twists? You made yourself sick last time!”  
  
“No, I didn't.”  
  
“Believe me, you did. I was the silly sod who mopped your puke up fifteen minutes before the landlord came round while you lay on the floor in the utility room and sobbed.”  
  
“It was the night after the Candy Vortex Halloween party. I threw up from the booze.”  
  
Adam snorts. “Dean's the one who can't hold his drink. You're the one who can't hold cheesy bread. Put them back.”

Aidan's response is to cradle the basket protectively. “You're the worst student ever, Adam. And anyway, stop looking at me like I'm making terrible life choices. These go out of date tomorrow so they're half price. I'm being savvy. You're squandering our money on fresh fruits and vegetables, like anyone even needs those.”  
  
“Yeah, and I can hold my drink!” Dean pipes up, clearly affronted.  
  
Adam rolls his eyes and slouches over to the checkout area.  
  
“I don't know why I live with you two,” he mumbles.  
  
“Because we're handsome fuckers?” Dean supplies.  
  
“And you hope that our lonely, drunken nights in will one day result in an intense and steamy threesome?” Aidan adds loudly, and the old woman on the checkout next to them glares at him over the top of her specs.  
  
“Like I'd ever sleep with either of you two,” says Adam, unloading their baskets and holding the sweets out with a look of disgust. “I shudder to think the amount of E numbers there'd be in your come.”  
  
That earns them another scowl, and Aidan throws his head back and laughs. Sometimes Adam is a stuffy little priss. Sometimes he is not.  
  
“Well I hope those are your true sentiments, Ads, 'cause your opportunity's fading fast. What with Dean and I both having landed ourselves dates tonight!”  
  
“Dean has a date with the bloke he met at the bar last week,” says Adam. “You have an appointment with your English tutor.”  
  
“Appointment, tutor... I don't like to use such rigid terms. I prefer to think of it as an intellectual connection of the mind, body and soul.”  
  
Adam snorts, handing a clutch of pound notes to the girl on the cash register. “Body? What're you expecting then, for your essay to be so good he'll ram you across the desk by way of reward?”  
  
The cashier's kohl-lined eyes widen a little.  
  
“Something like that,” says Aidan, and he grabs a couple of bags and shoves them at Dean, taking the three remaining ones himself to relieve Adam of the heavy loads as a way of saying thank you for buying his flatmates food that won't give them heart disease.  
  
“Anyway,” Aidan goes on once they're outside, “don't sound so thrilled for me, Adam. Really, your confidence in me is overwhelming. I might cry.”  
  
“You know exactly how I feel about your little pursuit,” Adam mutters. Then he turns to Dean and changes his tone altogether. “ _Dean_ , on the other hand, I have immense confidence in and wish him all the best on his date with... what was his name again?”  
  
“Luke,” says Dean, rather too glumly.

He doesn't sound too chuffed because he's privately told Aidan that he only accepted Luke's offer of a date out of pity, since the guy fell out of bed and hurt his elbow while they were having sex. Dean says he's a pretty fantastic lay (joint injuries aside) but horribly, horribly boring. Apparently all he talked about last Friday was his brief stint modelling laptops for PC World, and when Dean mentioned his Canon 600D Luke thought he was referring to an actual canon.

But Adam, not being aware of this, has been totally over the moon at the idea of Dean getting with someone his own age as opposed to his old, married tutor. He's barely stopped talking about it all week.

Why can't he show a little more enthusiasm for Aidan's pursuits? They're far more valid than Dean's; at least Aidan actually  _likes_  Richard.

 _Richard_. He's been rolling that name around his tongue for days now, whispering it in his sleep. It's probably not healthy, Aidan is dimly aware, to be almost as attracted to a name as you are to the man who possesses it.

 

 

 

It's after five when they make it home. Aidan rushes upstairs to get in the shower before Dean, and afterwards stands in the middle of his bedroom clad in only his boxers, surrounded by clothes on all sides. He really hates this part.

Aidan's always been pretty okay with how he looks, but fashion has never been his speciality. Well, he knows to buy jeans dark enough and long enough in the leg not to make him look like a nerd, and he doesn't own a single t-shirt with some geeky slogan sprawled across it, and the slim leather jacket he got in Kentish Town last summer pretty much always guarantees a good pull.

But he's never been great when it comes to drawing the line, has always found the things he likes and stuck to them, never been one for branching out much. Someone once broke up with him for wearing too much plaid. That left a deep-rooted insecurity Aidan doesn't often like to acknowledge.

At any rate, he now only owns two plaid shirts.

He has them both in his hands, in fact, but he's glancing at the black Joy Division t-shirt on the floor as well, and the slim white button-up next to it, and the baby blue v-neck hanging on the back of the door.

He  _almost_  goes for the red plaid. Then he remembers the thin stripy jumper that makes his chest look a lot broader and more well-toned than it actually is and groans.

“Dean?” he calls. When there isn't an answer after half a second, he shouts louder, “Dean?! DEAN.”

“ _What_?”

“Come here.”

“I'm busy,” Dean yells back from downstairs.

“What are you doing?”

“Watching Embarrassing Bodies. Aid, come see, I swear this guy with the anal fistula looks just like you.”

Aidan rolls his eyes in the mirror.

“Adam?” he tries, significantly more pleased this time when he hears a sigh of, “ _Coming_.”

Seconds later, Adam is knocking gently at the door (Dean usually just waltzes right in) and poking his head round it, eyes shielded behind a hand.

“Are you naked?” he asks.

“Christ, Adam, anyone'd think you were straight. You've seen my arse before.”

“Entirely against my will,” Adam points out, but he lowers his hand all the same, looking far too relieved when he sees Aidan's wearing boxers. “What's the matter?”

“I need you to help me pick out clothes. I haven't got a fucking clue about this sort of thing.”

“Christ, Aidan, anyone'd think you were straight,” Adam says dryly, coming over and taking the two plaid shirts from Aidan's hands. “Well you can drop these for a start. Why d'you insist on wearing these ugly things? I can never decide if they make you look more like a little boy at Sunday School or a pensioner.”

“They're comfy,” Aidan protests.

“They're vile,” Adam corrects. “And anyway, when you want to impress someone comfort is hardly – oh no. No no no, I am not doing this. I'm not helping you slut it up for your tutor.” With a manic little flail Adam scoops the plaid shirts back up and shoves them into Aidan's arms. “Wear the plaid, wear the plaid!”

Aidan drops them immediately, and with a cheerful little swagger swipes up the baby blue, black and button-up.

“Right, so it's between these three. Which one, Armani?”

Adam stares at them all for a long time, before rolling his eyes long-sufferingly.

“I suppose the blue v-neck  _is_  rather nice,” he mumbles. “But, Aidan, please don't do anything stupid. I know you and Dean think I don't know shit, but it's obvious his tutor gave him a reality check last week and I don't want you to have to go through the same thing. I can't afford another night of heartbroken drinking. My student loan's going down the plug!”

“That's because you buy so much salmon.”

“Aidan...”

Aidan pauses in tugging the t-shirt over his head. “What?”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I. Stop buying it, nobody likes it.”

“For God's sake, you're being insufferable.”

“Look,” says Aidan, and now he's got the t-shirt on he grabs a clean pair of jeans and tugs them on too, battling with the tight zipper. “I don't know why this bothers you so much. It's not like you even know the guy.”

“But –”

“He's barely older than me, and I'll be out of here in a year. And it's not like I'm forcing him to do anything. If he wants me, I'm not exactly going to say  _no_.” With a little sigh of satisfaction, Aidan manages to get the tight jeans good and fastened. He's not much of a fashionista, but they make his hips look  _superb_. He glances up at Adam now through shower-damp curls. “If you saw him, you'd understand.”

“You're insulting yourself by suggesting that someone's physical appearance alone is making you unable to keep from doing something potentially very damaging!” Adam says primly, arms folded across his skinny chest.

“Oh, but it's not just how he  _looks_ , Adam,” Aidan sighs, grabbing from his desk a half-full bottle of Boss No1 (recommended for romantic use). “It's his voice, his scent, his  _passion_. He talks about Wordsworth like he wants to bang him right there on those daffodils. I want him to talk about  _me_  like that.”

“Right, and that's the height of romance, is it? 'Banging on daffodils'? And is that  _aftershave_? Are you wearing aftershave to an office hour?”

“I wear aftershave every day.”

“No, you don't.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don't! Believe me, I would know. You smell like watermelon most of the time.”

Aidan glances at him, confused.

“So I suppose you think your tutor's going to get one sniff of that and take you right then and there in his office?” Adam continues, not even looking at Aidan anymore, staring hard at a red wine stain on the carpet instead. “Right, well, maybe that's for the best. Maybe then you can exorcise him once and for all and leave the poor man alone!”

Quite suddenly, Aidan kneels down in the space before Adam's seat on the bed and takes hold of his hands, forcing them down.

“Don't hate me, Adam. I couldn't stand that,” he says, surprised at just how much he means it.

Adam looks at him waveringly, clearly unable to decide on one emotion alone. In the end he sighs, letting his hands go slack against Aidan's.

“I don't,” he says. “I'm saying all this because I  _don't_  hate you. It's just... oh, you and Dean are such  _idiots_. You both could have anyone you want. We go in bars and clubs, and it's like flies to a honey pot, and I'm just there like the ugly third wheel.”

Aidan starts at that. “That's what this is about? You feeling left out?”

“No! I mean...” Adam sighs again, regret at his outburst written all over his little elfin face. “You could take your pick. And you pick the worst option possible. It's like you  _try_  to make things difficult, like it's some sort of game to you. Like you're bored with the dregs of society.”

Aidan looks at him for a long time, a myriad of feelings pooling low in his belly. He seems unable to decide on just one. His thumbs stroke Adam's hands in absent-minded circles.

In the end, he pulls back and stands up.

“I have to go,” he says, gesturing towards the door. He scoops up his messenger bag and jacket, glancing one last time in the mirror on the wardrobe.

Adam looks up at him with big, sad eyes. On a whim, Aidan leans down briefly and kisses him on the lips.

“I don't think you're ugly,” he explains, a little awkwardly. Then he turns and leaves and goes downstairs, and the evening is warm and summery when he steps outside.

 

 

 

Richard's office is  _perfect_. The seminar room where they do their tutorials – where they had one today, in fact, earlier on in the afternoon – is stuffy, clammy, right at the top of two winding staircases and packed with deteriorating books.

But Richard's room is on the ground floor, right at the back in a little turret, custom-built curving shelves housing books both pristine and well-thumbed. There's a big desk, a couple of chairs, and a huge sash window looking out over the sun-drenched lawn of the English department.

Yeah, bloke's got it made.

Aidan sits on the spare chair when Richard invites him to and drinks in every tiny detail around him, the gorgeous glass paperweight on the desk, the notebooks scrawled with neatly elaborate handwriting, the literary postcards tacked up in neat rows on the wall, the framed photograph propped up on the desk. It's of Richard and some other guy, youngish and dark, their arms around each other and a huge ugly carp between them.

“My nephew,” Richard explains when he catches Aidan looking. “We're very close. I don't see him much now I've moved up here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Leicester,” says Richard, which explains the crinkling map of Leicestershire above the desk, penned as it was in (Aidan has to squint to see the date) 1605. “Yourself?”

Aidan hesitates before answering. “This tiny town called Clondalkin,” he says, and then deciding it's easier just to elaborate he tacks on, “Dublin.”

“Long way from home.”

“I don't mind. My housemate Dean's from New Zealand.”

“And what about Adam, the one who vomited in the fridge?”

Aidan, surprised that Richard remembers, manages a tiny grin. “Berkshire.”

“Ah, now there's somewhere I'm more familiar with.”

Aidan's not sure if it's the gorgeous weather, the early evening hour, or the intimacy of the tiny office that's making Richard a little more mellow than usual, but it's certainly nothing to complain about. He's even rolled the sleeves of his pale blue button-up to the elbows, and Aidan can barely tear his gaze away from the smooth rippling of muscle in the exposed forearms as Richard turns his chair to open a drawer.

He produces a handful of familiar papers, fixing Aidan with a warm smile.

“Your essay,” he says. “I trust you've already seen your feedback, but just to refresh your memory...”

Aidan takes the papers from him and roams his gaze over the smooth red pen as though truly interested.

“For starters, it's extremely clear and competent, which is admirable. You're a very good writer, Aidan.”

Aidan smiles stupidly at that, tries to hide the hugeness of his grin behind the papers.

“And trust me, people underestimate how much of a difference that can make. The content is excellent, too. You've obviously done your research. But, as you can see I've already written there, if there is anything your work is suffering from it's a lack of, well,  _ambition_. It's clear you know what you're talking about, and the points are all there ready to be developed, but you just seem a little hesitant to press further. You shouldn't hesitate. I know you know what to say. You can be very impressive in tutorials.”

Aidan looks up at that. “Yeah?”

“'Impressive' probably isn't the right word,” Richard says quickly, leaning back in his seat. “Thoughtful, I mean. Perceptive. Open to... suggestions.”

“I do like to think of myself as being very open-minded.”

“And it – and it shows. Really, your commentary on the various philosophical and scientific interpretations in Part Two is truly outstanding, if only lacking a little in sustenance.”

Aidan can feel every word, every stammered compliment, flaring great warm jolts of pride in his chest. He leans forward in his seat, unsure if he's eager to be closer to Richard or to simply receive more praise in that warm, smooth baritone.

“I see,” he says slowly, nodding. “And how would you suggest I improve on that, sir?”

A pink tongue darts out to wet parted lips, and Richard's Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

“I would say, ah... simply to... go with your own instincts.” Richard nods, as though it's only just sunk in what he's said and he approves of it. “Trust your mind and don't be afraid to elaborate.”

“I think that's excellent advice,” Aidan tells him, subtly leaning further until their knees are almost touching. “People don't do that enough, do they? Everyone's always so concerned with sticking to the rules, doing it by the book.”

“By the book?”

“Scholars, I mean. I just thought that citing people who knew more about this stuff than me would make a point adequately enough, but you're right. I really do need to...” He pauses, smiles very slowly as he meets Richard's eyes, which are warm and blue in the evening spring light. “Go with my own instincts.”

Richard blinks once, twice, and then a third time. Finally, he finds his voice: “Well, it's as D.H. Lawrence said – it's our business to go as we are compelled!”

Aidan wonders if it's significant that his tutor just quoted a writer of such controversial eroticism. He smiles back, lets his knee brush very subtly against Richard's.

“Words to live by,” he says softly. Then he leans back in his seat and crosses one leg over the other.

“So do you have any questions?” asks Richard.

“Not really,” Aidan replies, letting his eyes wander over the office again, enjoying the way Richard sits tense in his seat. His eyes land on a huge clump of familiar books on the windowsill, and Aidan smiles. “Do you like Tolkien?”

Richard blinks and follows his gaze to the books.

“Yes!” he blurts out. “Very, very much. There's actually an Honours module on Tolkien alone, it looks at the Lord of the Rings and compares it to The Silmarillion. I don't lecture on it but, God, I'd love to. Are you a fan...?”

Aidan thinks about lying, but pretending to know anything about some mad genius like Tolkien when you've only seen the first movie adaptation seems like a difficult thing to get away with.

“Not really. I mean, I know enough about the stories but I never really found time to sit down and work my way through such weighty, er, tomes.”

“They're wonderful,” Richard says softly, as though he really does think they're just about the most excellent things to exist. “What do you like to read? I don't think I've ever asked you.”

Oh God. Discussing books with someone unbearably attractive who has a doctorate in English Literature. This could be the make or break of everything...

“Er, I like... Brett Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk... oh, I really like Jack Kerouac.”

Great, well, if he wanted to sound like a fucking hipster then job well done. Might as well add Kurt Vonnegut for good measure.

“Kurt Vonnegut.”

Could be worse, he supposes. He could have said J.D. Salinger.

“You sound like my nephew,” Richard smiles. “He adores anything set to slay twentieth century ideals.”

“That's my favourite past time,” says Aidan, and Richard laughs –  _laughs!_  – and Aidan feels like he's just solved world hunger.

They talk a little while longer, and Richard tells him all about this Tolkien essay, 'On Fairy-Stories', and Aidan's actually surprised how interested he finds himself in it, to such an extent that his eyes don't even glaze over when Richard pauses to lick his lips in the middle of a sentence.

Finally, when nearly a whole half hour has passed and Aidan thinks he might fall asleep to the deep, rhythmic lull of Richard's voice, Richard presses a soft paperback into his hands. Aidan looks down at the creased cover of The Hobbit.

“You should borrow this,” Richard tells him. “It's not heavy at all, so you can't use it as an excuse to not do your tutorial assignments.”

“Thanks! But... what if you want to read it?”

“I've got about three copies at home,” Richard admits. “In fact, keep it. I need to stop hoarding things. If I see a nice book I'll buy it even if I've already got it. I'm a sucker for pretty covers.”

“Me too,” says Aidan.

Richard looks at him, seems suddenly to register their closeness and pulls his hands back from where they've been pressing the book into Aidan's lap.

“Well, it's getting quite late,” he says. “I'm sure you don't want to spend your Friday night with your English lecturer.”

“I don't mind,” Aidan replies, deliberately obtuse and with a smile on his face. “Unless you'd rather get out of here. It's pretty hot, isn't it? We should go for that drink.”

“I... I'm sorry?”

“Well, since you didn't come last week.”

“Aidan, I'm working.”

“I'm your last appointment.”

“I mean... tomorrow.”

“On a Saturday?”

Richard looks physically pained by this. “...Yes.”

“Look, I get it,” says Aidan, and he does, or he thinks he does anyway. “You think it's a dumb idea to hang out with a student.”

“No, it's not that, it's...” Richard shakes his head. “Tell you what, why don't we have a drink here instead? It'll have to be  _non_ -alcoholic, of course. I think our only options are tea and some pretty grimy coffee.”

“Grimy coffee's my favourite,” says Aidan, and successfully he pulls that warm laugh from Richard a second time.

When Richard leaves the room, Aidan leans back in his chair again and studies the book in his lap, running his thumbs over the smooth, worn edges. He wonders how many times Richard has sat in here, or in a chair at home, or at his kitchen table, or in bed, and pored over the words with that passionate look he always gets in his eye during lectures.

He imagines reading the whole thing, then reading The Lord of the Rings, then reading – what was it? Silmillion? – and impressing Richard endlessly with his vast and boundless knowledge. He bets Richard even knows Tolkien's languages, probably uses them during sex.

God, that's a lovely thought.

“Here you go,” says Richard when he returns, handing over a polystyrene cup of hot coffee. “There's no milk or sugar, I don't know why. I told you it was pretty bad.”

“It's fine, I like it black,” says Aidan. He doesn't really, but drinking black coffee has always seemed terribly sophisticated to him. He takes a sip and tries not to wince.

“So why aren't you out tonight?” Richard asks when he's in his seat again.

Aidan shrugs. “I suppose I could be, but it's never much fun without Dean and Adam. Dean's on a date, and Adam's not going out anymore because he's bought too much fish.”

“Ah, is Dean the friend you were trying to help, er... 'pull'?”

“I swear you remember all the stupid things I say.”

“Well, you say some pretty astonishing things.”

“Do I?”

“By comparison to me, I suppose. I was pretty tame at university.”

“Really?”

“Does that surprise you?”

Aidan shrugs a second time. “I don't know. You're full of surprises, aren't you? I mean, I wasn't exactly expecting to come across you smoking outside a gay club last week, but there you were.”

Richard swallows hard at that.

“You're very bold, aren't you, Aidan?”

“Does it bother you?”

“No. I'm just not always sure I can keep up.”

“Sorry.”

“No no no, it's fine, it's... rather refreshing, actually. Working in education does mean that people have a tendency to...”

“Bullshit?” Aidan supplies helpfully.

Richard lets out a shaky laugh. “Yes, if you like.”

“I suppose I just feel comfortable around you,” says Aidan, and as though to emphasise his point he lets his legs go a little more slack, parting them so they almost fall on either side of Richard's. “You're not like other teachers. You're, you know, young.”

“You thought I was forty last week!”

“I was a bit drunk last week. In fact, I don't think I ever apologised for that, so if there was anything particularly ridiculous I said then I'm sorry.”

“There wasn't,” Richard says kindly. “I'd say you were perfectly charming.”

Aidan smiles so big at that he has to hide it behind another sip of coffee.

When their cups are empty Richard gets them a second without even questioning it, as though he actually  _wants_  Aidan to stay. Aidan goes to get their third, and by this point he doesn't even notice the bitter lack of milk and sugar, so transfixed is he by Richard's honeyed words, the subtle way he licks his lips after sipping his drink.

Soon they're sitting right next to each other. Richard's showing him a huge great map of Middle-earth, unfolded from the centre of a book, and pointing out minor details with such fervency that Aidan finds himself staring right at him, rather than down at the paper in front of them. Richard's got this very light dusting of stubble on his face, and the smooth, hard line of his jaw gleams in the early evening sun. It's impossible for Aidan to tear his eyes away.

“So you can see it's sort of...” Richard glances up and trails off, and Aidan swears a tiny flush tinges the jut of those sharp cheekbones. Richard looks down again, smiles, gives his head a little shake. “I've completely forgotten what I was going to say.”

“Happens to me all the time,” Aidan says gently, and then because it's warm, and because he can, and because Richard's hand is brushing against his on the map, Aidan leans forward and kisses him.


	5. Chapter 5

First kisses, for the most part, are always good. Even if they're executed poorly, or clumsily, or drunkenly, there's still something inherently excellent about tasting someone's lips for the first time, feeling how warm they are, how wet or dry, registering the fingertips on your hips or jaw or neck.

Richard's lips taste like coffee. They're firm, pressed tight together where they're barely kissing Aidan back. But at a glacial pace they finally begin to move, slightly, growing softer, more pliant under Aidan's, and Aidan feels it all the way down to his toes and hungrily parts his lips for more.

Richard pushes him back.

“Aidan,” he says, but it isn't a snarl or a shout, and maybe that means he isn't too angry. “I just thought...”

“What?”

“I thought we were having a nice time.”

Aidan feels that deep inside him too, but for a different reason now. He looks at Richard's eyes, which are warm and surprised and maybe even a little sad, and thinks that okay, alright, maybe kissing him wasn't such a wonderful idea after all.

No denying, though, that it  _felt_  wonderful. Felt amazing.

“I'm sorry,” Aidan says suddenly, because he doesn't want Richard to hate him. “I just... it's hot in here, you know? Must be doing strange things to me.”

“Aidan –”

“And it's late, too,” he interrupts, swivelling round and hauling his bag up off the floor. “I should go, get out of your hair. Thanks for the feedback and showing me the – the... stuff.” He waves a vague hand in the direction of the desk, standing up as he does, and reaches for the handle to the door.

He pauses, waiting.

“Goodnight, then,” he says eventually, when Richard doesn't speak.

“Goodnight,” says Richard. He doesn't tell Aidan to stop, to come back. So Aidan doesn't. He leaves. It's only when he gets home that he realises he's left the copy of The Hobbit sitting on Richard's desk.

 

 

 

Dean brings Luke home after their date, and Aidan spends half the night listening to them having sex. Not willingly. He may have been rejected by his tutor, but he hasn't turned into a complete voyeuristic stalker just yet.

In the morning, he's annoyed to find Luke sitting in _his_  place at the kitchen table, looking smug and handsome. He's drinking out of Adam's Danny Zuko mug, too. Aidan thinks Adam'll be well pissed by that, but when he turns around it's to find Adam cheerfully cooking Luke breakfast, chatting merrily, while Dean tries to keep himself awake at the table with lots of Ibuprofen and coffee.

“I thought it was a pity date?” Aidan asks later on when Luke's left and Adam's gone to a rehearsal.

Dean shrugs. “It was pity sex.”

“You're shameless.”

“What can I say? Bloke's got a way with his tongue.”

And see, Aidan would laugh, only the thing is the words are all there but the tone isn't. Dean sounds bored, tired, like it's an effort to even be attempting to make jokes in the first place.

Aidan peers at him from across the table, but Dean's expression gives nothing away. He's sat sipping his coffee serenely, reading the weekend newspaper.

“Hey, you alright, Deano?”

“I'm fine.” He smiles over the top of the paper to show just how fine he is. “How was your office thingy last night anyway?”

“Yeah... not bad.”

“Anything happen?”

Aidan looks up at that.

“No.”

He doesn't know if he says that because he doesn't want to rub any teacher-student relations in Dean's face, or because he's still feeling horribly embarrassed by Richard's blatant rejection.

Rejection. The word hits him like a ton of bricks.

“Do you wanna do something today?” Aidan asks out of the blue, and if Dean notices the obvious change in conversation he doesn't mention it.

“Like... what?”

“I don't know, go somewhere. We never hang out anymore, just the two of us.”

“Aidan, we live together.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

Dean doesn't even try to look like he's considering it.

“I don't really feel like it. I think I'm just gonna go back to bed. Why don't you ask Adam?”

“He's tied up in rehearsals today.” Aidan pauses, staring blankly down at his mug of tea. “Dean, is everything alright?”

“I told you, everything's fine.” Dean stands up then, takes his empty mug and crosses to put it in the sink. He's still got the paper in his hand, like he wants to read it but Aidan's distracting him. “I'm just tired. All that mind-blowing sex really takes its toll on you. You should try it some time!”

It's a limp joke, and Aidan honours it with an equally weak laugh. Dean swats his head playfully with the paper on his way out, and Aidan finishes his tea alone in the kitchen.

After, when Dean's gone upstairs, Aidan finds the newspaper abandoned on the coffee table. He snatches it up and flips boredly to the centre, blinks at what he sees there.

It's a photography exhibition. It's Graham's.

 

 

 

The rest of the weekend is a misery. Adam's busy with Drama and Dean mopes around half-dressed, eating way too much bread, and Aidan finds himself constantly torn between wanking to the memory of Richard's lips and sobbing to the memory of Richard's rejection.

For once, his Monday morning lecture comes too quickly. Aidan slouches in with his head down, ignores Richard's gaze and finds a seat next to Russell, who himself is in a pretty foul mood for some reason Aidan can't be bothered to ask about.

The lecture begins. Aidan ignores the way Richard's chest looks in pale sunshine yellow, the breathlessness of his deep voice during a particularly climactic stanza of 'Proverbs of Hell'. Aidan makes half-hearted notes, and then draws circles on his paper for the rest of the class.

Sometimes he thinks he can feel Richard's gaze boring into him. When he glances up, Richard is looking at someone else.

He dismisses them five minutes before the hour is up, with nothing more than a reminder to make sure they do the required reading before the next class. Aidan goes a little quicker than usual, swears it's only because Russell is rolling his eyes behind him, wanting to get out.

But he can't not go past Richard's desk, and when he does his name comes loud and clear over the din of the exiting students.

“Aidan. Stay a minute, would you?”

What can he do? Scream, “NO!” and throw the sheets on the desk up in a flurry, making a hasty escape in the papery confusion?

He stays rooted to the spot, and waits for everyone else to leave. It seems to take  _hours_. When the door swings shut behind the last one, Aidan turns to look at Richard. A book's being held out towards him.

“You forgot this,” Richard says softly.

Aidan holds out his hand, carefully takes the battered copy of The Hobbit with barely suppressible warmth bubbling up in his chest. He wants to shove it down again. He feels nothing but stupid under Richard's gaze. Now he knows how Dean felt over Graham.

“Thanks,” he says, slipping the soft paperback into his bag. “Yeah, thanks.”

He thinks about leaving then, but Richard's still looking at him, hard and intense, like words are brimming on the edges of his lips.

“Aidan, I'm not...”

He stops and sighs, running a firm hand over the stubble on his jaw. Aidan realises for the first time this morning that Richard hasn't shaved. Richard closes his eyes, opens them again.

“I'm not angry,” he says finally. “About what happened on Friday. It doesn't have to change things, I mean.”

“Things?”

“You know, that you're a student and I'm your tutor and... I just want the best for you, and it's important we make sure our relationship isn't...” He swallows, choosing his words carefully. “Awkward.”

Aidan feels like he's in primary school, being gently reprimanded by a teacher.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, you're right.”

They look at each other. The only thing between them is a small portion of useless, empty space. Aidan's got his arms folded across his chest, but he lets them drop to his sides, giving Richard a tiny smile he doesn't really feel.

Richard suddenly leans in and kisses him.

It's only brief – barely even happens, but it does. He catches Aidan on the corner of his mouth and pulls back straight away, like his body's acting out of character and his mind's only just caught up with it.

But it was definitely Richard who did it. Aidan just stood there, didn't move a muscle. Didn't even blink until now.

Richard's first words, of course, are, “I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. I'm just –”

He doesn't get any further. They're kissing again. Aidan thinks he might have been the one to initiate it this time, but Richard isn't pulling back, isn't doing anything to stop it. Their lips slide hot and fast, in a way Aidan never expected but sort of always hoped for, and he's curling the fingers of his left hand around Richard's neck, scrunching in his hair, the fingers of his other hand fisting in that damned yellow shirt.

He can feel Richard's chest against his own, trembling.

One of them pulls away first. They stare at each other. Richard's lips are swollen, wet and gleaming and good and pretty and perfect, and Aidan wants to capture them again, still has his fingers in the fabric of Richard's shirt, could just pull him forward again if he wanted to –

“Aidan.” Then nothing. Then, “ _Aidan_ , God. This is... we can't tell anyone about that.”

“I wasn't going to.”

“Because we could –”

“I wasn't  _going_  to!” Aidan hoists his bag up on to his shoulder where it's slipped down, face burning with embarrassment. Honestly, could the guy act any  _more_  ashamed?

“I just don't want us getting ourselves into trouble,” says Richard.

“You kissed me first!”

Richard looks at him.

“Today I mean,” Aidan quickly corrects himself. “You kissed me first today.”

“Yes, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.”

“Why shouldn't you have?”

Richard sighs. “Please don't make this difficult...”

“Well, it's not going to be easy, is it?” Aidan snaps, and immediately he wishes he hadn't because the way Richard flinches makes him ache. “Do you want me to just go away and never talk about this again? Pretend I don't even like you?”

Richard looks like he mightn't be entirely opposed to that idea. The anger flares up in Aidan's chest again, and he turns to leave.

“Aidan, wait –”

He doesn't wait willingly, but Richard catches up to him at the door and hauls him back round again. His lips open and close like there's a thousand things he's trying to say at once, but in the end it's only the limpest fucking sentence that he manages to come out with.

“You barely even  _know_  me.”

“You've been my teacher long enough,” says Aidan. “And anyway, I do know you. You live in Hunter's Gate and you're from Leicester and you like The Lord of the Rings and you and your nephew caught a really ugly carp once. See? I do know you.”

He sounds pathetic. Richard smiles anyway.

“You're so young.”

“I'm twenty. Hardly a baby.”

“You're an  _undergrad_. And it's my job to teach you and – and this is why this can't happen again, so... there's that.”

It comes out so soft and so gentle that Aidan would laugh were he not so utterly mortified.

“Fine. Yeah. There's that,” he manages, and it's difficult to look Richard in the eye but somehow he does. “Be scared, then. I don't care.”

Which, of course, is a lie. He cares a lot, thinks in that moment he's never cared about anything more. He looks up at Richard with eyes he hopes will drag out another kiss. All they get him is a small, sad smile. Humiliation burns in his chest, in his stomach, pricks at the back of his eyes, and Aidan turns and wrenches the door open without another word.

 

 

 

Outside in the sun, his phone vibrates with a text.

_oi leprechaun come for lunch NOW_

Not five seconds pass before another text comes through.

_hey would you like to meet dean and i for lunch? usual place? (:_

If anyone ever asks Aidan to explain the differences between his best friends, he'll show them these texts.

The 'usual place' is a tiny coffee house down a cobbled side street, so quaint it's difficult to believe such a hipster haven truly exists. It's not particularly special, but they go there mainly because it's usually lacking in other students (most of whom flock to Starbucks and other such trendy establishments of a lunchtime) and because Adam worked here last term, so they get discounts on the quiche.

Which, for the record, is the most magnificent quiche for many miles around. Aidan could definitely use some quiche and company right now.

When he goes in, he finds Dean sitting alone at the back making patterns in spilt salt.

“Where's Adam?” Aidan asks.

“Bathroom. How was your lecture?”

“Yeah, not bad. Don't you normally have one at this time?”

“I'm skipping it today. Our lecturer’s not here so we've got this dick sub who takes people's names out of an envelope and calls on them to answer questions.” Dean shakes his head sorrowfully. “I don't need that shit in my life, Aidan.”

“Fair enough,” says Aidan, rubbing an absent-minded palm over his lips. He's just about to enquire out loud as to whether he should go for broccoli quiche or bacon, when Dean grabs his hand and pulls it down against the table.

“You've been making out with someone.”

Aidan yanks his hand back. “What are you talking about?”

“I can tell,” says Dean, and then he points a short finger almost accusingly. “Who was it?”

“You can't tell when I've been kissing someone.”

“I didn't say kissing, I said making out. Don't underestimate my powers of deduction, Aidan. I can  _always_  tell.”

Aidan swallows, thinks about telling the truth and then thinks more seriously about lying. “How can you tell?”

“Because your lips get all red and you run your hands through your hair and touch your mouth fucking _constantly_. Sometimes for hours. You did it that time we made out – er, that one time... that we don't talk about.”

Aidan shrugs, grabs a menu he already knows by heart and pretends to read it. “It's not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is! Tell me.”

“You're such a brat. I can have some secrets, you know.”

“No, you can't. Spill.”

Losing his resolve entirely, Aidan slaps the menu down and leans conspiratorially across the table.

“Alright, but you can't tell Adam,” he says in a hushed voice, “and you're not allowed to get upset with me either.”

Dean quirks a brow, clearly much more interested now.

Aidan knows he said he wouldn't tell anyone, but “anyone” doesn't include Dean. He's Dean. And besides, it's not like Aidan's the only one here guilty of making a move on their tutor.

He feels bad for lying to Richard, but it's not like Richard could genuinely expect Aidan to keep this from his best friend. Aidan will have to tell him sooner or later. Better just to do it now.

He glances around the near-empty café and, seeing a woman in the far corner sitting with a bowl of soup and a notepad, and two girls huddled together over a mobile phone by the door, he mouths the words to Dean rather than says them. The thing about university cities, after all, is that somehow everyone who lives there is connected to the university itself.

“ _Richard_.”

Dean practically chokes on air. “You made out with your tutor?!”

“Shhhh!” Aidan bats blindly, upturning two menus and a salt shaker in the process. “You never know who's a fucking student in here!”

“When did this happen?”

Aidan hesitates. “Friday,” he admits. “Sort of. But –”

“Friday? I asked you and you said nothing happened!”

“Yeah, because I didn't want to upset you! Because I know you're still hung up about Graham and you promised you wouldn't get upset just now, so... please don't get upset, okay?”

“I'm not –”

But Adam comes back then, and Dean shuts up completely. Adam hovers over the table, looking between the two of them, suspicion scribbled all over his face.

“What have you done?” are the first words to come out of his mouth. They're directed at Aidan.

“Nothing,” Aidan says quickly.

“Bollocks, yes you have. I can see it in your face.”

“Christ, who _are_ you two, Holmes and fucking Watson?! Can we just order some quiche, please?”

Adam, being that he is not as persistent a little bugger as Dean, drops it. Dean doesn't say another word about it throughout lunch either, though he keeps fixing Aidan with these strange looks, and as soon as they're home he bolts up to Aidan's bedroom and invites himself in.

“So what happened?” he demands, flopping back on to the bed.

“Knock, could you, Dean?”

“Start with Friday and then tell me about today.”

Aidan sighs and closes his book on the desk where he'd actually been considering doing some work for once.

“There's nothing to tell. It's stupid. I got caught up on Friday when he was being all nice and chatty and I kissed him. He pushed me away. End of story.”

“It's not though, is it? If it happened today?”

“I don't even know what today was,” Aidan mumbles, shaking his head. “Except he did the same again. Totally rejected me after he kissed me and –”

“Wait wait wait, slow down.” Dean sits up properly, leans as far forward as he can without falling off the edge of the bed. “ _He_  kissed  _you_?”

“Yeah, but so what? Straight after it, he told me I might as well get lost. Practically called me a child and said I didn't know anything about him.”

“Aidan, teachers are under obligation to say shit like that. It helps them clear their own conscience. You know, 'oh I  _told_  him I was too old for him, so now it's totally fine that I want to fuck him'.”

In fairness, it's likely Dean's had a lot of time to think about this.

“That's ridiculous,” says Aidan.

“No, it's not! From what you've told me he's not exactly the type to go out of his way to break the rules. In all honesty he sounds like a right little apple-polisher. But he kissed you anyway! Surely that  _means_  something?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because... I know you like him. And all you have to do is keep at it a little longer and –”

“Dean, I don't wanna sleep with someone because I've worn them down. I want him to like me, not see me as some stupid slutty kid with a crush.”

“A crush which is most likely reciprocated.”

“You've never met him. You have no idea what he gets like, all flustered and confused. He probably didn't even know what he was doing. Probably felt sorry for me.”

“Aidan, the only person who feels sorry for you right now is  _you_. Seriously, if you've got a chance then take it –”

“Look, just stop trying to fix things for me because it didn't work out between you and Graham.”

Dean immediately closes his mouth.

“Sorry,” says Aidan, and he means it, because the look on Dean's face now makes Aidan feel like a dick.

“I wasn't... I don't even care about Graham anymore.”

Aidan sighs. “Dean, I saw the exhibition, okay? I know he used someone else for it. I'm sorry.”

“I don't even care,” Dean says again. “I'm just... I'm saying it'd be stupid not to do anything if he likes you.”

“And I'm saying he doesn't.”

“Fine. I'll drop it then.” Dean stands up and moves towards the door, but pauses when he passes by Aidan's desk. “I didn't know you were reading The Hobbit.”

The book sits beside his notepads.

“I haven't started yet,” says Aidan.

“It's good.” Dean pauses, like he's going to say something else. In the end, he rests a hand on Aidan's shoulder. “See you later then.”

When Dean's gone, Aidan picks up the book and turns back the creased front cover. Richard's initials are penned on the inside in neat, blue ink, and he runs a thumb over them.

He thinks about reading it. In the end he opens his drawer and drops the book inside.


	6. Chapter 6

Richard's hands mean a lot to Aidan. They are beautiful, long-fingered and lovely, like sculpted things. They dust carefully over mundane papers as though they're sacred, hold biros like a brush. Aidan wants them all over his body, wrapping gently round the curls of his hair.

In the weeks that pass Richard makes no attempt to talk to him on a personal level, but sometimes their fingers brush, brief and warm, when handouts are being passed around and Aidan's sitting to Richard's left. Sometimes their eyes meet and linger, then part. And it's no glorious declaration of love, or lust, or even the remotest care, nothing like the poetry they pore over every Friday. But it still makes Aidan think, well,  _maybe_...

Whatever Richard's sentiments, Aidan's feelings are a whirr of emotion these days, have been ever since they kissed in the lecture room that warm Monday morning. Excitement and sickening hopefulness both add to the constant feeling of longing for Richard which seems to underwrite all Aidan's other emotions.

He wants, and he wants so much. He feels like the swooning shepherds in the pastoral poems and plays they're ploughing through. He wants so badly to be Orlando. He is, undoubtedly, Silvius.

 

 

 

“So you'll come, won't you? Both of you?”

Adam's got a play coming up. A big play, biggest of the semester. He is Puck in TheatreSoc's modernized version of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , and Aidan's pretty sure if he and Dean don't go to see it they'll wake up tied to the walls in the garden shed with all their hair shaved off or something.

Not that it's a chore. He _likes_ seeing Adam act. Last year he played a comical version of the eponymous Edward II, and it'd been hilarious and raunchy in all the right ways. That was how they met, in fact. Dean had agreed to help paint the camp Renaissance sets, and Adam tripped during a rehearsal and smashed one of the smaller backdrops clean in two, meaning Dean had to give up another weekend fixing it. “I couldn't be mad though,” he told Aidan over a pint later that afternoon, hands bright with dried paint, “the guy playing Edward was just the most adorable fucking little dork.”

And now here they are, a year later: Aidan and Dean in their pyjamas trying to play Black Ops II, peering round Adam as he stands defiantly between them and the TV.

“Of course we'll come, Ads,” Aidan promises, thumbs working the controller madly. “Wouldn't miss it for the world.”

“Cheering you on the whole time,” Dean adds. Then he gets them both blown up and their Scorestreak resets to zero, and he almost falls off the couch at the force with which Aidan shoves him.

“Right,” says Adam, “good. Except don't. Don't make a noise, either of you, the whole way through.”

“What if we need to laugh?”

Adam appears nervous at this. “I'm not sure it's your style of humour. Based purely off the fact I once saw the two of you almost choke to death on laughter watching that video of the grape stomping lady.”

The two of them manage a hearty snigger even now.

“Adam, move out the way, buddy. We'll be at your play. Promise,” says Dean, rolling his shoulders as their characters come back to life.

 

 

 

A week later Aidan is standing at the foot of the stairs, staring into the hallway mirror, carding gel-slicked fingers through his hair. It isn't going well. The curls are at least flattened, but to achieve this look he's had to make it appear as though he's got some sort of greasy dead thing on his head. Regardless of what Dean O'Gorman likes to say about Aidan's hair, roadkill isn't exactly the look he's going for.

See, normally he gets Adam to do it, but Adam's not here. He's at his play. The one Aidan and Dean are supposed to be at right now.

“Dean? You in the bathroom?” Aidan yells up the stairs, refusing to tear his gaze from the mirror in case his appearance does something even more ghastly while he's not looking. One hard curl unfolds slowly from his scalp and droops down his forehead, like the first of many slicked and captive soldiers willing to sacrifice himself.

When Dean calls back that he isn't Aidan turns and races up the stairs two at a time, gel drying quickly on his fingers. They're already late, for God's sake. He bursts through the bathroom door and yanks his t-shirt off, wobbles over the edge of the bathtub and sticks his head under the shower. The sudden jet of water makes him gasp like a patient being brought back to life, and Dean wanders in behind him.

“Haven't you showered already?” he asks thoughtfully. Aidan can see him out of the corner of his eye, looking wonderful in low-slung jeans and t-shirt, blond hair perfect. Bastard.

“No, Dean, clearly I haven't showered and I'm just taking one now. Clearly this is how I take showers.”

Hot water streams down Aidan's face, and he splutters and wipes at his eyes. Big mistake. His fingers are still covered in gel, and his eyes quickly begin to sting.

“Fucking hell, that burns!” With one swift swipe he turns the shower off, grabs a towel from the rail and runs it through the mop of black rat's tails on his head, pressing the clean corner to his poor eyes.

Excellent. Now that he's ruined his hair and burnt his retinas, he tugs his t-shirt back on and goes into his bedroom. From beneath a pile of Nightmare on Elm Street DVDs (the three of them squashed up in Aidan's bed the other night for a Freddy marathon) he finds his trusty grey beanie. Bit dusty. He shakes it off a little before putting it on. Dean looks scandalized.

“You can't wear a hat in the theatre!”

“It's modern Shakespeare, Dean, it's perfectly fine. When's the taxi coming?”

Uselessly, Dean looks at his watch. “Well. It's already here.”

Aidan yelps, pushing past him and bolting down the stairs. He grabs his denim jacket off the end of the staircase, upturning all the other coats there in the process.

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“You were having a shower.”

It's another five minutes before they finally get in the cab, by which time the meter has racked up nicely and the cabbie is looking less than pleased. They make it to the theatre in another ten. They're not late, thankfully, but the theatre is so packed they have to wait outside for a good while before they can actually get in.

“How can there be so many people here? What kind of loser goes to see Shakespeare _willingly_?” Dean says a bit too loudly, so that no less than four people turn to fix him with stony eyes. “God, stuffy fuckers,” he adds, much quieter this time. “Hey, d'you think there's a bar here? Aidan?”

Aidan barely hears him. Watching from a distance, he's just seen a familiar head of dark hair. He doesn't have time to listen to Dean. He's too busy deciding whether to feel excited or horrified.

“Aidan, what is it?”

“Richard is here.”

“Richard?”

“My tutor!”

The foyer fills further, and the small crowd coming in behind them surges and forces them forward. Aidan tries to turn and walk the other way, but there's a whole barrier of people, dressed to the nines for their little theatre trip and making the air thick and sickening with perfume, and he can't get past. He tries to go left instead, towards the gents, but Dean grabs hold of his arm.

“Where? Where is he?”

Aidan hesitates. “Over there.”

“Where?”

“ _There_!”

He points subtly to the ticket booth, where Richard is stood tall above the rest in a startlingly rich red shirt. Granted, Dean is about three foot tall, but how he can't spot that bright red bulk is beyond Aidan. When he eventually does, he whistles low and nudges Aidan on the arm.

“ _Fuck_. Aid, he's hot!”

“Yes, Dean. I'm aware.” Aidan gives a noise in his throat halfway between a sigh and a low little groan, and tugs pointlessly at his hat. “Why does he have to wear red? And why now, when I look like some kind of fucking... gremlin?”

“Bit too tall to be a gremlin,” says Dean, peering up at him thoughtfully. “Maybe a vagrant?”

“Appreciate the confidence boost there, mate.”

“I don't mean vagrant in a bad way. I mean a _dapper_ vagrant. Like... Jamie Foxx in The Soloist.”

“Oh, excellent! Homeless schizophrenic was exactly the look I was going for.” Aidan rolls his eyes. “Look, just be quiet, would you? Maybe we can get in without him seeing us.”

Naturally, they don't get in without Richard seeing them. Life doesn't work like that. Life is cruel. If this were a restaurant, or a bar, or a trendy modern party, and if Aidan looked fabulous and Adam had done his hair for him, then Richard wouldn't be here at all.

But as it is, Aidan looks a total wreck: his hair is complete shit, his eyes are still a bit red from the gel onslaught, and his body in general is sluggishly sleepy and slow from a night on the Xbox with Dean. The complete package is a far cry from 'sexy and alluring', at any rate.

“Hello, Aidan,” Richard says politely when they pass, civil smile painted on his face.

And then of course Aidan has to go through the whole routine of pretending he didn't even notice Richard was here, which means he has to act surprised, and since Dean is a fucking idiot he doesn't get what Aidan is doing, so when Aidan says, “Oh, Richard, I didn't even see you!” Dean goes, “What are you talking about? We saw him ages ago.”

And then there doesn't seem to be anything else to say.

Fortunately, a man emerges from the gents then and weaves his way through the tightly packed bodies to stand at Richard's side, offering Dean and Aidan a charming smile. Only, it's not so fortunate after all, because the man is young and dark and terribly good looking, and Aidan feels his heart drop right into his stomach.

“Hello,” the man says, all bright and southern English and _false_. “Who have we here then?”

 _Who have we here then?_ He might as well be rubbing his hands together in delight. What does he think he is, some kind of toddler's TV presenter? Aidan Turner is twenty years old. Twenty!

Richard answers for him. “Tom, this is Aidan, one of my second year students, and...” He moves his hand from Aidan to Dean, clearly at a loss.

“Oh, I'm Dean,” Dean says after just a moment too long. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ah, I've heard all about you,” Richard says pleasantly, even though he hasn't really. “It's nice to meet you, too. This is Tom, one of my Ph.D students. He's doing his research in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, that's why we're here.”

“Oh, that's nice,” Aidan says blandly, and his disinterest must show because Tom's confident front visibly falters. “We're here because our best friend's in the play.”

“Which character?”

“Puck. He's really good, isn't he, Dean?”

“Yeah, really good.”

“I like your accent, Dean,” says Tom, ignoring the Puck comment completely. “Where are you from? South Africa?”

“Er, New Zealand.”

“Wow! New Zealand! You know, I had the most fabulous gap year to Australia...”

And suddenly Dean is being dragged aside into a deep conversation about Tom's fabulous gap-yah to a country Dean has never actually visited, and Aidan's left standing in front of Richard like a muted fool. He's the first to speak. Naturally.

“So. Tom's your Ph.D student.”

“That's right, yeah.”

“Good-looking guy.”

“Aidan...”

“What? He is.” Aidan peers over at where Handsome Tom is standing before Dean, gesticulating wildly, endless rows of teeth shining red in the fireglow light bulbs of the foyer. Dean is actually wincing. Aidan hasn't seen him look this unimpressed since he found out 30 Rock was ending.

“I think we need to talk,” Richard says abruptly.

Aidan's head snaps up at that. “Talk?”

“Alone. Not now, later. In private. Just to...” Richard pauses, tongue darting out to wet dry lips. “Just to sort things out.”

“What things?”

Richard lowers his voice, though it's impossible to be overheard through the incessant din of the foyer. “You know what I mean. We have to get rid of this... _tension_ between us.”

Aidan smiles slow at that, which is perhaps a little sleazy, but with lines like that what does Richard expect? Civility?

“D'you know how _I_ work off tension?” he asks sweetly.

And Richard sighs, like he was expecting it. He opens his mouth to reply when Dean appears out of nowhere, having apparently escaped the demonic claws of Tom.

“Hey! Sorry to interrupt, it's just – I think we're going in now?”

Dean points to the double doors hopefully, fixing Aidan with a desperate look, less _I think we're going in now_ and more  _can we **please** go in now?_

“I'll see you later, Aidan,” says Richard, looking far too relieved about it. “Yes?”

Aidan gives a stiff nod, not entirely sure what he's agreeing to, or when exactly they're supposed to have this talk, or if he even _wants_ them to. He doesn't fancy another lecture, another patronizing reprimand from a man barely ten years older than him. He's not a child. He wishes Richard would stop treating him like he is.

Inside, their seats are good. Front of the dress circle, courtesy of Puck himself. Aidan immediately puts his feet up, the warmth of the theatre already settling him into a state of sleepiness. He'd probably doze off halfway through (no offence to Adam, but Shakespeare productions aren't exactly Aidan's favourite forms of entertainment) were it not for the hard gaze boring into him from behind, keeping his heart thudding efficiently.

Richard and Tom are only a little way behind, and Aidan's sure he can feel those dark blue eyes on him throughout the whole of the first half.

Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but when Aidan moves to stretch, spine twisting languidly to the left a short moment, their eyes meet briefly as the hush of Act III sets in.

 

 

 

Adam is good. No, Adam is absolutely  _excellent_. Wanders the stage like he owns it, spouting off lines about hungry lions and howling wolves with flair and natural ease, little winks and twirls and snickers making the audience laugh, making Aidan sometimes forget his current predicament of his gorgeous professor sitting not two rows away from him.

The curtain draws for the interlude, and Dean turns to Aidan with this grin plastered all over his face, going, “Our little elf baby!”

Aidan tries to be as enthusiastic – after all, Adam is fantastic – but now the curtains are momentarily closed he's distracted again. He peers around, and Richard's seat is empty, but Tom's there, yapping heartily into his phone and peering at his nails. Twat.

“I'm going to the bathroom,” Dean announces.

“No, I need to go,” Aidan says firmly.

“Alright then, let's –”

“You stay here and guard the seats.”

“But –”

Before Dean can argue, Aidan drops his jacket and phone and wallet in his seat to serve as an incentive for Dean to stay, and leaps up, hurrying down the aisle. Outside, the foyer is bright on his sleepy eyes, and he squints as he stumbles towards the gents.

He finds Richard in there, washing his hands. There's one other bloke having a piss across the room, but apart from that the place is thankfully empty.

Aidan approaches Richard with his hands in his pockets. He tries to go for casual, only it sort of comes out more as cautious, his walk more nervous slink than swagger. Richard's expression doesn't fill him with confidence either; he looks wary, as though Aidan's a deer hunter and Richard a cornered stag.

“Hi,” Aidan says a little breathlessly. “You wanted to have a chat?”

Richard manages a short laugh at that, twisting a paper towel between his fingers. “I was thinking somewhere a little less... bathroom-y.”

It's obviously intended as a joke but, still slightly pissed at how much he's been ignored recently, and how Richard insists on treating him like a five-year-old, Aidan doesn't smile.

“Well, I'd talk to you in tutorials but you seem to have developed this strange habit of _ignoring_ me.”

Richard scrunches the towel up into a little ball, exasperation written all over his face. Simultaneously, they glance over at the other guy in the room. He shoots them a weird look back, but takes the hint and leaves. When the door swings shut, it's just the two of them. It stinks of violet bleach in here, and that and this strange feeling of confrontation washing over him is making Aidan feel nauseous.

He clears his throat. “So what then?”

Richard looks at him with restless eyes. Is he upset? He's definitely upset. Aidan almost starts to feel bad.

“I need to apologise first,” Richard says suddenly. “I'm sorry, Aidan, if I ever gave you the impression that something could happen between us.”

Aidan toes deliberately at the ground. “What could have given me that impression? You kissing me?”

“I shouldn't have done that. I really am sorry. I know that's not much use now, but... well, it's obvious that you've developed a... a _fondness_ for me, and it's very – ah – flattering, but we really should work to keep our relationship strictly professional.” Richard exhales, and when he does his sigh is shaky. “I'd like it if we could just be friends.”

Aidan allows a moment or two for this information to sink in, and then immediately discards it.

“Can I say something now?” he asks.

Richard looks nervous, but nods his assent. Aidan takes a tiny step closer, mustering pint loads of confidence in the face of Richard's obvious discomfort.

“I don't think you're telling the truth,” he says quietly, and he doesn't, he really doesn't. “I think you know you want us to be more than friends, but I think you also know what you _should_ be saying to me, what's expected of you.”

“That's not true at all,” Richard says firmly. “I'm not just saying all this for the sake of –”

“Teachers are under obligation to say stuff like that,” Aidan goes on, remembering Dean's words and holding fast to them. “That 'you're too young, I'm your teacher' spiel that helps you sleep at night.”

Richard shakes his head, but this time he's quiet. Aidan steps closer still.

“Look me in the eye,” he says. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don't like me. And I swear I'll leave you alone.”

“Aidan –”

“I swear.”

Gradually, at a pace painstakingly slow, Richard lifts his eyes from the grimy tiled floor, trails them all the way up Aidan's body to his face. They linger a while on his lips, his nose, and then their gazes lock and Aidan feels something deep inside himself _twist_.

Richard licks his lips. “I...” He clears his throat and tries again. “I don't...”

“Yeah?”

“I don't want to hurt your feelings.”

“You won't. Just say it.”

Richard doesn't, or won't, or can't, or _something_. His lips don't move, but neither do his eyes. They stay resolutely on Aidan's, and Aidan feels it all the way through his body and back again. He stares at the dashes of navy in the pale of Richard's eyes, the tiny dark ring of blue around his pupil Aidan's noticed far too many times before.

Aidan is the first to drop his gaze, feeling unexpectedly shy. And it's a stupid analogy, but it suddenly feels like he's made of _glass_ , like Richard's looking right through him and he's fragile as _fuck_.

Because, Aidan realises, he doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to have to swear that he'll never come to Richard again.

The second half of the play must have started by now. When Aidan finds it in himself to glance back up again, Richard's eyes are still on him, and he's looking at him with such sincerity, such warmth and bare and naked conflict, that Aidan doesn't think twice about closing the gap between them and pressing a soft kiss to Richard's mouth.

It's barely anything, only the briefest brushing of lips. He's fairly sure Richard's eyes don't even close. But when the two of them part Richard finally opens his mouth to speak, and when he does it's only to say Aidan's name, in one ghost of a whisper that hits Aidan right to his fucking core.

He takes hold of Richard's face and kisses him again, and this time Richard's arms come right around him and _pull_ , and suddenly Aidan is flush against his body, and it's like they're welded together.

It's wonderfully decadent, of course, foolhardy and dumb and bold, the kind of kiss that beckons heartbreak. But Aidan doesn't care, _can't_ care, not when Richard's big hands are on his hips, his waist, sliding up his chest to clutch firm at the back of his neck.

Fingers move to his head, and Aidan's beanie is being pulled down. He breaks the kiss to push it back into place again, inwardly cursing the need to stop at all.

“Don't,” he breathes. “My hair's fucking stupid.”

Richard's brows knit in confusion, but it's a brief look and it passes quick as a fly, and soon they're kissing again, hungry and hot, like Richard's words and cautions have become redundant, like they were never really said at all.

He takes Aidan by the hips, turning them so that Aidan's the one up against the wall now, the cool tiles pressing hard against his back. He moans right into Richard's mouth when one strong thigh pushes between his legs, but it's a mistake; the noise seems to prompt Richard into level-headedness, and he pulls back with a slick, wet sound, breathing heavily.

“I barely know you,” he pants, rubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.

Ignoring him, Aidan bats the hand away and grips the back of Richard's head and pulls him in for another kiss. Richard accepts it, pushes his lips firm and warm against Aidan's, only to pull back a second time moments later.

“And you barely know me.”

“God, I don't care,” Aidan groans, letting his head tip back against the wall.

And that, that definitely isn't a mistake, because in seconds Richard has his hands planted on the wall on either side of Aidan's head, and he's dipping forward and latching his mouth on to the column of Aidan's throat, sucking fast and desperate and wet. He lifts his face from Aidan's neck, kisses his way up his jaw and to his mouth, running his tongue along Aidan's lower lip and pushing through, licking at the roof of his mouth.

It's a dam breaking, Aidan thinks dazedly, and it's a weak metaphor for something so heady and blissful and good, and Richard wouldn't be pleased if he heard it but it's all Aidan can think of; a dam breaking, and now this, _now this_.

They break apart, and the world is spinning.

“You can't go back on that,” Aidan tells him, chest rising and falling in rapid little pants. “You can't say that was a mistake now.”

“I wasn't...” Richard shakes his head. “I wouldn't.”

Aidan grabs him. “Tell me what to think, would you? I'm sort of lost.”

“I'm... look, we need to get back upstairs, it's a wonder no one's –”

The door bursts inwards, and Dean rushes – or hobbles, hobbles might be the more appropriate term – in, peering frantically over the tops of the cubicles.

“Aid, are you – ? Oh, _there_ you are. Sorry I'm not 'guarding the seats' but I need to _piss_.”

He shoves right past Aidan to rush to a urinal, and Aidan looks at Richard and bites his lip to keep from laughing. Richard looks _mortified_ , flushed and fumbling at the thought of nearly being caught.

Aidan maybe sort of likes the idea of nearly being caught.

He turns on his heel with a euphoric little grin and leaves the room, and Richard quickly follows.

“Guarding the seats?” he says once they're in the foyer again. “You told him to 'guard the seats'? I suppose it's quite sweet that he actually did.”

“It's Dean,” Aidan says. “I think he probably knew what I was going to do really.”

They look at each other for a moment, and seconds later they both glance away. Aidan's the first to speak again.

“So,” he says, “I'm gonna ask you one last time, and if you say no then that's it, I'm not bothering again.”

Richard fixes him with confused eyes. Aidan reaches to put his hands on his broad shoulders.

“Will you come for a drink with me later?”

Richard's look of perplexity dissolves into a warm, shaky laugh.

“I'm serious,” says Aidan. “Three's my limit. After three, I give up.”

“I don't suppose I've a choice, have I?” Richard says quietly. “Alright. But I said I'd take Tom home after this.”

“Fine. Meet me at The Blue Bell when you're done.”

Richard's brow furrows. “The Blue Bell? Wouldn't have thought that'd be your sort of place.”

“It's not. It's not any student's sort of place. Hence why I'm saying to meet there.”

“You've thought about this.”

“I haven't.” 

Richard looks for all the world as if he doesn't believe him. In the end he doesn't argue. He sighs and gives a stiff little nod instead.

“Right then. Blue Bell it is.”


	7. Chapter 7

There's a reason Aidan doesn't go in The Blue Bell. It's not exactly a back alley sort of place, but it's definitely not chilling in the thick of things either. All the trendy clubs and pubs and bars and tapas restaurants line up side by side, street after street in the 'vibrant' part of town. The Blue Bell sits off the end of one cobbled, beaten lane, and the trendiest thing about it is the set of strung-up fairy lights in the garden.

He's sitting there now because it's a warm night and besides, the pub itself is filled to the brim with red-faced middle-aged men, all basking in early to mid stages of drunkenness. Adam's play finished at nine, and it isn't particularly late now, but the guys in The Blue Bell aren't witching hour drinkers; they're after-work drinkers. They've been here hours, which explains why, when Aidan first walked in and ordered a pint of lager, one particularly brazen-faced old man clapped him hard on the back and loudly enquired as to why he wasn't ordering Guinness (“You Irish drink Guinness for breakfast!”)

That'd prompted three more of them to stumble over and start pestering him, and it was only once he'd assured them all that no, he didn't speak too much Gaelic and no, he'd didn't know Bono, and yes, sometimes he ate potatoes, that he managed to escape into the fortunately rather empty garden.

So now he's sitting alone at a wooden table, and he's nearly finished his drink, and he's staring at the soft glow of the fairy lights and wondering why Richard isn't here yet. How far away must that Ph.D student live for it to take this long to drive him home? Fucking Tom. Aidan knew there was a reason he disliked him.

Needless to say, it's pretty difficult to apply the same level of annoyance to Richard. Every time Aidan thinks about him – which is sort of the whole time he's here – his lips tingle ridiculously, nerve endings alight at the memory of heated kisses.

God, he's happy. And nervous. And sort of a smidgen proud. He almost wants to hug himself, but manages to keep still. Just.

Soon though, jittery as he is with the anxiety of waiting, it becomes impossible to restrain himself, and Aidan necks the rest of his pint and stands to return to the bar. It's as he's drumming his fingers absently on the counter top, waiting to order a second (purely out of a desire not to be sat in a pub garden looking stupid without a drink, rather than to actually become intoxicated) that he sees the door open, and Richard shuffles in looking nervous.

Aidan's heart leaps. He beckons him over a little frantically, conscious that the band of merry English men may start closing in again soon.

“I'm sorry I took so long,” are Richard's first words to him upon managing to ease his way through the tightly-packed bodies.

“It's fine, it's fine! What do you want to drink?”

Richard looks more than a little flustered. He glances all around himself as he mutters something about having whatever Aidan's having.

“I'm out at the back, it's madness in here,” Aidan tells him. “You go, I'll be there in a minute.”

When he returns to the table with their drinks, Richard's got his hands pressed flat together, head sort of bowed. It's almost as though he's praying. _Dear Lord, please allow this budding relationship to run smooth and effortlessly_ , perhaps? Better yet: _Dear Lord, I implore you earnestly; let this student and I shag each other very soon_.

“Tom get home okay then?” Aidan asks, sitting down.

“Yes, yes, fine.”

“You took so long, I thought maybe you'd cornered _him_ in a bathroom.”

He means it as a joke, but Richard looks kind of mortified at the thought.

“I don't make a habit of getting involved with students, you know, Aidan.”

“Is that what we're doing then? 'Getting involved?'”

Richard sighs. “I don't know what we're doing.” He's quiet for a very long time, drink unsipped beside him. When he speaks, his eyes are on the table. “The reason I took so long to join you here is because I was sitting in the car thinking of all the things I was going to say to you. All the reasons we couldn't start something between us.”

Aidan's heart topples through his rib cage to his gut, and in a second he feels sick.

“As well as all the reasons I feel as though there's no other choice,” Richard finishes quietly.

Aidan looks up at him, fingers tightening around his glass. “What do you mean?”

“Aidan... I know you'll roll your eyes, but the reason I keep stressing that we barely know each other is because it's _true_. That's what makes this all so strange, because...” Richard swallows, still not meeting Aidan's eye, as though the words themselves are difficult enough to accomplish, never mind _eye contact_. “Because you're there in my head all the time, and you shouldn't be.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you think! We're both perfectly aware that I have a duty to take care of you in a way that doesn't involve any...” Richard hesitates. “ _Romance_.”

“Your fulfilment of that duty's sort of gone out the window now.”

Another sigh. “Yes. So it seems.”

“Christ, don't sound too happy about it.”

“Oh Aidan, be fair. You know it's not that I'm not happy about it. I'm just very confused.”

Aidan leans a little further across the table, fingers unwrapping from his cold glass to inch towards Richard's in some silent invitation.

“What's there to be confused about?” he asks. “I really like you. Hey, you're stuck in my head, too. We have a swear jar at home. Your name's on the list attached to it. A quid every time I so much as whisper the word 'Richard'. A quid! That's an expensive name you've got.”

It seems to be against his will that Richard lets out a laugh. Encouraged, Aidan goes on.

“I've had to start coming up with alternatives like bloody code names. There're only so many words Adam can fit on that page, after all.”

Richard laughs again, louder this time, and it's a lush sound, all warm and dripping honey, and Aidan finds himself having to drop his gaze.

“I mean, you need an outlet, don't you?” he says. “You need to be able to tell your friends all the wonderful stuff about the person you like.”

That makes Richard blush a little, which is gorgeous and a bit astonishing. The soft pink hue seeps high on his cheekbones, and he takes a hasty gulp of his pint.

“But they don't know, do they? About...” It's clear Richard's going to say 'us' but, perhaps thinking 'us' to be just a little too solid-sounding, a little too relationship-y, he quickly changes it at the last moment: “About what's happened?”

Aidan hesitates because, after all, Dean _sort_ of knows. He doesn't want to lie to Richard – really, he wants to do a _lot_ of things to Richard but lying definitely isn't one of them – but it's for the best, surely. A white lie, the kind his mum told him were sometimes alright for the benefit of other people's feelings.

Not that that instils Aidan with much confidence. If his mum knew he were attempting to spare the feelings of the older, male lecturer he's trying to sleep with, whether or not a lie is white or very black would probably be the least of her concerns.

“They don't know,” Aidan says carefully. “I mean, they know I fancy you, but Dean fancies one of his tutors and Adam fancies one of his Drama coaches, even though he won't admit to it. Like, it's just a laugh. They know I like you. I just... talk about you a lot.”

Richard looks like he might be on the verge of smiling at that, but scrubs a hand over his face instead, almost like he's wiping the smile away.

“You're twenty years old, Aidan. You probably fall in and out of love all the time.”

“Hey,” Aidan says gently, “didn't say I was in _love_ with you. Only one guy's ever been worthy of my love.”

“Right. And who was that?”

“Kovu. From The Lion King II.”

He keeps a straight face but Richard laughs again, and the eyes he fixes Aidan with now are so warm and blue in the glow of those gentle fairy lights that Aidan's stomach twists and trembles pleasantly. Happiness. It takes very little for Aidan to convince himself he's going to be imminently happy. It's always sort of been his downfall. He pictures himself, holding Richard's hand, skipping down a sun-soaked lane...

“You _are_ lovely,” Richard says quietly, almost like he's confirming it with himself rather than trying to string out compliments.

“Great. Then give me a kiss.”

“Aidan, if I kiss you, you know what will happen, don't you?”

“With the way you're looking at me I'm beginning to think nothing will.”

“But you want something to?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I've gone mad,” says Richard, but he peers around to check the garden's empty before leaning in and pressing his lips to Aidan's.

 

 

 

Dean's painting when Aidan gets home. It's nearly midnight, but that's not too odd; Dean has been known to paint at the strangest times, in the strangest situations, and with the strangest tools to aid him. Sprawled across the living room carpet covered in orange paint at half eleven isn't really out of the ordinary at all.

“Hello, beautiful,” Aidan chirps. “That painting looks amazing.”

“Did you take drugs?”

Aidan thinks about it; if Richard Armitage's lips are laced with drugs then yes, he's high as hell.

“Ah, can't a man tell his best friend what a talented little dote he is?” Yeah, thickening the accent, bringing out the Dublin slang. Definitely high. He kneels down, gives Dean a brief, clumsy hug and then peers at the painting over his shoulder. “What is it?”

“It's not finished yet. Barely even started. It's for my term project.”

“Oh, right. What's the topic?”

“'Joy'.” Dean rolls his eyes. “Easy to be a clichéd little fuck, hard as hell to be original. But we'll see what happens.”

“It'll come out brilliantly, like all your paintings.”

Dean turns to him, eyes narrowed a little. “Why are you being so nice? Did you get fucked or what?”

Aidan pulls away and slinks himself up to lie on the couch. Clearly Dean is in a Bad Mood.

“I told you, Richard and I were just meeting up to talk,” says Aidan.

“And you talked, did you?”

Talked, and drank, and made out in Richard's car for about fifteen minutes. It's a very nice car, actually. Audi, black. Classy. The leather seats felt magnificent against his arse.

“Yeah, just talked,” Aidan says carefully and then, since it's clear the conversation isn't engaging Dean particularly well, he changes the topic. “Adam about?”

“He's out celebrating with his actor friends.”

“Oh yeah, course. You not seeing Luke tonight?”

“He's out with his Economics friends.” Dean pauses, eyes scanning slow over the canvas. “I'm thinking of breaking up with him actually.”

“Really? I didn't realise you were properly going out.”

“Well, he keeps introducing me to people as his 'Australian boyfriend'. His mates won't stop asking me if I know Delta Goodrem.” Dean's irritated shudder is actually visible as he leans over the canvas to sketch out quick lines in pencil. “Besides, he's taking me out for our 'one month anniversary' tomorrow, so he must be taking things pretty seriously.”

Aidan starts at that. One month, is that really all it's been? It seems like ages since Aidan stumbled across Richard outside that club.

“Why are you breaking up with him then?” he asks, fully expecting the answer to be, “Because he's not Graham.”

“He's just a bit weird,” Dean says instead. “The things he says, I mean. Like, he calls me 'little man'. In _bed_. What's up with that?”

“That is pretty weird.”

“And when he doesn't want to talk to me about something, he pretends he can't understand my accent.” Dean suddenly kneels up, arms held out to the sides in obvious outrage, pencil dangling. “I mean, who the fuck even does that?”

“I don't –”

“And he's so _patronizing_. Like...” Dean's voice suddenly switches to a pretty spot-on and stuffy English accent: “Oh you do art? Of course, it's not a _real_ degree, is it? _I_ do Economics, _I'm_ gonna save the fuckin' world, blow me for saving the world, blah blah blah.”

“Dean –”

“ _And_ he wants to film us having sex! Ha, I'm not falling for that one. Again.”

“Um –”

“Honestly, Aidan,” Dean goes on, and now he's stabbing – _stabbing_ – the canvas with his brush, “just don't ever enter into a relationship. Because all people will do is disappoint you, and call you Australian, and _mock_ you, and try to make up for it by being really good looking.” Suddenly the paint brush is pointing directly at Aidan. “Well, let me tell you, I am a mature and responsible adult, and I can see past things as petty as... as aesthetic appeal.”

“Okay,” Aidan says a little slowly, almost holding his hands up in defence. He's seen Dean angry before, of course (the Graham argument would be a case in point), but it's really rather a rare sight. He's certainly not the type to get angry about boyfriends. In fact, he's usually so relaxed and nice about relationships that if he does want to break up with someone, he just waits around patiently until they split up with him first.

And sure, maybe Luke's a bit too smug and a bit too handsome, but whenever he's been at the house he's always seemed perfectly civil. Surely he can't be _that_ bad? Aidan almost feels guilty for being the one to introduce the two of them.

But because Aidan is shit when it comes to emotions and advice and being anything close to a helpful friend, he shifts uncomfortably on the couch and moves to get up. He's almost annoyed with Dean for putting a dampener on his joy over Richard, which is totally unfair really since Dean has no idea what's happened. But still... why is it that when Dean actually manages to slip into a bad mood, Aidan is in a ridiculously good one?

“I'm sorry it's not working out, mate,” he says eventually.

Dean shrugs. “Not your fault.”

“Listen, I was gonna go to bed but if you want to talk about it...”

But Dean waves him off with a flourish of orange-soaked brush, and Aidan touches him briefly on the shoulder before he goes out into the hallway and upstairs, feeling like the terrible friend he is. It's not that he doesn't _want_ to help Dean. It's really more that he doesn't know how.

He's left the window open all day, but his bedroom is still stifling. The spring they're in the midst of already seems like the height of summer, and it's totally glorious, if a little uncomfortable. Aidan peels off his t-shirt and the stupid beanie he's had to wear all night for the sake of dignity, and flops onto the bed, finally allowing his giddy smiles their freedom.

He thinks of the warmth of Richard's lips, the heat of his lovely body, his hands, his voice, the way he'd secretly and gently squeezed Aidan's fingers beneath the table. And later, before they'd parted, he'd given Aidan his phone number and said in a low voice, “If we're going to do... this... we need to go very, very slowly. I think you're lovely, Aidan, but I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.”

Which, Aidan thinks as he hugs his pillow to himself, is sort of like a love declaration.

 

 

 

The next day is Saturday, and Aidan spends it helping Adam make fairy cakes (eating the raw mix and washing the spoons), watching Dean paint and reading a few chapters of The Hobbit. It's good. A bit la-di-da '30s, but he suspects that's why people find it so charming.

He does not, however, spend the day texting Richard, although he'd very much like to. He checks his phone as much as is humanly possible without Adam or Dean getting suspicious, but the screen remains resolutely blank (except once around midday when Dean texts him from the other room to ask Aidan to bring him some Pink Wafers).

And of course, entirely irrationally, Aidan begins to panic. Why exactly hasn't Richard texted him? Granted, he never _said_ he was going to, but why would he give Aidan his number otherwise? Has Richard gone off him already? Is he regretting his decision? Has he changed his number? Perhaps Aidan had better ring it just to make sure...

No, clearly he's speaking too soon! Because joy of all joys, the screen suddenly flashes up at him and the phone begins to buzz in his hands, and his heart sings with jubilance, huge and gleeful grin scrawling itself across his face –

Oh right. It's his mum.

He answers it and she talks to him for half an hour about thermal curtains.

In the evening he takes a shower and sprawls out on his bed in his boxers with some tea and a fairy cake and The Hobbit and tries to read a little more. It's not particularly successful. He has to stop every few sentences to check his phone, even though it's on vibrate. He puts it on silent to up the sense of excitement every time he goes to look at the screen, but all that serves to do is make him more disappointed when he discovers there's still nothing on it.

Not to mention more bloody irritated with himself. He shakes his head and opens his eyes wide, forcing them to focus on the words on the page in front of him.

_I must stop acting obsessed. I must let Richard have interests other than me. I must concentrate on this book. I must stop acting obsessed. I must –_

Down by his foot the phone vibrates with a text, and in his haste to read it he drops his fairy cake icing-down on the floor. He ignores it, grappling for the phone instead, jabbing at buttons clumsily before drinking in the words with greedy eyes. With a sudden surge of pleasure, he collapses against the bed in a giddy heap of limbs.

_want to go for a drive? x_

Aidan finds the cake on the floor, dusts it off and bites into it, grinning.


	8. Chapter 8

When Aidan was ten, his Christmas present was a tree house. Living in a rural area of Dublin meant that their garden was big enough to accommodate it, but he had to wait until the weather brightened up before he could actually build the thing.

Even then, the summer that year was wet. He spent two miserable weeks hauling the house together with a hammer and as many rusty nails as he could find in the garage. It's a wonder his parents even let him do it (even back then they weren't exactly free spirits but, being Irish Catholics, they held and still hold very strong notions about what sort of 'manly' things it's healthy for a boy to engage in and, after Bible study and producing children, woodwork is third on the list).

Anyway, when he finally got the shaky tree house up, a flash storm blew it down again in one night. He spent a further two weeks re-building it, this time with the help of his slightly more competent father.

That isn't a story about learning from your mistakes, or having a strong work ethic, or showing perseverance. It's just that, after that one long month, when the bloody house was finally finished and leering down at him, ten-year-old Aidan was sure he'd never do anything so exhausting again in his life, ever.

He was wrong. Having an affair is the most exhausting thing he's done in his life.

Of course, there is debate as to whether or not Aidan's relationship with Richard can really be deemed an affair in the traditional sense, since neither of them are cheating on anyone else. But it's fervent and it's illicit and it's _deliciously_ taboo, and in his head Aidan likens the two of them to impassioned star-crossed lovers.

It's exhausting because his mind is brimming constantly, and not with things it should be like work and Dean's bad moods and laundry and remembering to pay the electricity bill. It seems like long weeks and months are passing before Aidan's eyes, hot and lazy days spread swelteringly between lectures and tutorials, when in reality it's only been days, a fortnight at most.

Last week they spent the whole of Friday afternoon together, after the tutorial. Richard actually asked Aidan to stay. He was supposed to be preparing for his Monday lecture, but decided to spend a significant amount of time crowding Aidan up against the wall in his office instead.

Which is fucking amazing and fantastic and everything else good, but when Aidan's fingers had made the coy journey from Richard's collar to his zipper, Richard had batted them away quick as  _wildfire_.

Aidan hasn't tried that move again since. It was sort of embarrassing, to be so readily rejected. And anyway, he thinks he gets it; Richard wants to go slow. Aidan can totally do slow. Granted, he's never gone slow before in his life, but there's a first time for everything.

It's just a bit hard. He likes Richard _so much_. He's like dark chocolate or cinnamon or spearmint, sweet and biting all at once. He blushes far too much, but when he doesn't Aidan feels like he's not doing it enough. And God, he's handsome. And so smart, so much so that –

“Aidan? Are you actually listening to me?”

Does staring at someone's mouth, even if you're not actually registering what's coming _out_ of that mouth, count as listening?

“Course I am.”

“Alright, what did I just say?”

Aidan racks his brains. “You were... telling me how stunning you think I am.”

“Yeah, guess again, bright spark.”

It's a Thursday morning, and the English lecture's just finished for the day. Everyone else has filed out. Aidan is sitting, rather daringly, on Richard's desk, legs swinging.

“I just thought it best to tell you about my teacher training now,” Richard continues patiently, stacking papers. He's wearing a thin grey cardigan today. Christ, he looks wonderful. “I know it's very primary school, but it's mandatory. Every other year they march us there. I'll be gone the whole week.”

Aidan tears his eyes away from the cardigan. “What? Which week?”

“Next week. It starts on Monday, I'm driving down on Sunday evening.” Richard shakes his head and places the papers neatly to one side. “Believe me, I don't want to. Five days of some bouncy twenty-something telling me how to use an interactive whiteboard is ridiculously far from my idea of fun.”

“To be fair, you're the one lecturer who makes next to no use of visual aids. The only reason no one complains is because they're all too busy staring at you anyway.”

Richard rolls his eyes at that, which isn't much of a surprise. If there's one thing Aidan's learnt in the past two weeks, it's that this man can't for the life of him take a compliment.

“Well, be that as it may, I still have to go and sign an oath saying I'll 'broaden my use of e-learning', and apparently that's going to take a week. Professor Hadlow will be covering my lectures.”

Aidan groans out loud. “For fuck's sake!”

“Aidan!”

“Well! Have you ever sat through one of his lectures? I swear, it's my version of Room 101.”

“Don't be so dramatic, he's a perfectly fine teacher.”

“I literally fell asleep in a lecture of his once. No one's ever _actually_ supposed to fall asleep in class, Richard. It's meant to be a joke.” Aidan claps his hands together, and slips himself off the desk. “Well, guess that means no classes for me next week.”

“Hey, absolutely not. You're to go to _all_ of them. Speaking as your tutor, I would prefer it if you passed the year.”

Grinning, Aidan slinks forward. “Well, that's exactly why I'm taking private lessons with you, isn't it, Professor?”

He slips his arms easily around Richard's waist, and though Richard's eyes flicker to the closed door he doesn't pull away. Then again, he doesn't exactly hug back. He just gives Aidan this small, fond smile and tells him, “You're absurd.”

“I don't think you mind, though.”

“No,” Richard sighs, “I don't think I do.”

Aidan goes to kiss him, but this time Richard pulls back altogether.

“We should watch it, really,” he says, as though the situation's only just properly registered to him. “My next class will be in any minute. You should head off.”

“Fine,” says Aidan, but he darts forward and snatches a quick kiss anyway.

Richard still has this crazy idea that he's a responsible teacher, so he pretends to be annoyed for a moment. It isn't long before his expression's softening again.

“Are you coming by tonight then?” he asks.

“Do you want me to?”

“You do know how to fish for a compliment, Aidan Turner. Of course I want you to!”

“You're not gonna freak out about people seeing us?”

That earns him a second roll of the eyes. Richard leans in quite close and drops his voice beautifully. “Believe me, I'll be much more content to kiss you when a hoard of students isn't about to burst in through the door.” He straightens up again and swats Aidan playfully on the shoulder with a couple of the papers still in his hand. “Now go on, go get your lunch. I'll see you later on.”

When Aidan is at the door, Richard calls after him, “And bring your tutorial work tonight. I'll be marking papers, so you can be productive, too.” He pauses. “Unless, of course, you've already done it?”

Aidan's fairly sure that's a joke, and laughs appropriately.

 

 

 

He goes to their quiche café for lunch, loads up on pastry and tea and does his tutorial prep then and there. It needs to be done before tomorrow's seminar, and he's not going to waste an evening with Richard doing _work_.

It's pretty standard stuff. A couple of five hundred word answers for questions on Marlowe's 'The Passionate Shepherd to His Love'. The poem itself is terribly dull, weirdly plain and easy but important, apparently, in terms of the pastoral. So he eats his quiche and rattles off two answers, coming up a little short in word count and having to space his handwriting out on the last page. Never mind. He'll make it up to Richard physically. Because he can do that. That's actually a thing Aidan can now do.

Well, if Richard ever actually manages to let him cop a feel. For someone so gorgeous he's weirdly frigid. Like, they've been developing this 'thing' of theirs for two weeks now, and maybe that's a little soon for anything too heavy, but is it totally unreasonable to suggest the odd grope now and again?

To be fair, they haven't spent much alone time together, but when they _are_ alone Aidan almost forgets that they're teacher and student. Richard seems totally _un_ able to forget it.

See, the thing is, until recently Aidan wasn't actually aware that students aren't really allowed to sleep with their professors. American college movies and porn always made it seem totally acceptable. Apparently it's only slightly less frowned upon than high school kids having it off with their teachers.

So it makes sense that Richard would be kind of nervous. This is his job, after all. Aidan thinks, in a rather self-satisfied sort of way, that Richard must like him a lot to risk it. Then he mentally kicks himself for sounding like such a smug little prick.

 

-

Luke's sitting in Aidan's chair at the breakfast table again. Dean still hasn't broken up with him, in spite of his firm resolution two weeks ago. Aidan suspects it's something to do with the fact that when Dean came home from that dinner out, he was sporting a rather large hickey and a very nice new watch.

He stayed up 'til two in the morning, desperately painting Luke's portrait from memory (“It's only been a month, I didn't realise we were getting each other presents! I'm going to tell him this wasn't dry in time for this evening. Why do I have a conscience, Aidan?”) and drinking copious amounts of Red Bull.

Apparently Luke also has a massive wang, so that might have something to do with it.

“Hello, Luke,” Aidan says pleasantly, pretending he doesn't mind that his chair is once again occupied.

“Hi, Aidan. Dean's just in the shower.”

Luke is sort of smitten with Dean, so he assumes that everyone else wants to know where he is every minute of every day, too.

“Oh right. Cool. You two off out?”

Luke nods enthusiastically. “We're going to see one of his tutor's exhibits.”

Aidan, who has been trying to jam the split wire into the plughole to make the kettle work properly, pauses. His tutor's exhibit? As in, one of _Graham's_ exhibits? That's a bit... weird. But alright.

“He didn't exactly invite me,” Luke says quickly, perhaps noticing Aidan's expression. “I just... I'm trying really hard to get on board with this whole art thing, you know? I'll admit it's difficult. I mean, it seems like such a _waste_. He can already paint and take photographs. Why go to university to learn something you can already do?”

Aidan stares at him, empty mug in hand. If this is what Dean meant by patronizing, then Aidan can totally see it. He hasn't had many conversations with Luke, beyond their initial one in the bar that time, so he's never really fully been able to understand Dean's complaints. But –

“And between you and me,” Luke goes on, “I really don't think photography is as technical as he makes it out to be. I mean, you click a button and it snaps a picture. His camera cost nearly two grand, the photos are bound to look good!”

Aidan grits his teeth. He's never realised how much Luke's forced RP accent makes him sound like a massive tit.

“Well,” Aidan says, “Dean's really passionate about photography, so...”

Luke sighs, like it's this really unfortunate thing. “Yeah, I know. That's why I'm trying to understand it more. I like him a lot but, ah. Well. I don't think we have much in common, let's say that.” He shoots Aidan a look, almost accusingly. “Does he tell you things?”

“Of course he does. We're best friends.”

“Personal things, I mean.”

“Er, sometimes.”

“He doesn't tell me _anything_.”

“Well... you've only known each other a month and a half.” Aidan isn't entirely sure why _he's_ the one consoling the guy. He barely even knows him. He's just a strange, smarmy man who keeps sitting in Aidan's chair.

“You're right, of course,” says Luke. “I don't think I ever thanked you for introducing us. I really do appreciate it, mate.”

He holds his hand out, and Aidan goes to take hold of it with the palm still wrapped around his mug. He switches clumsily at the last minute, and Luke gives him a withering look. Aidan suddenly hates him. In a moment he is convinced Luke is trying to steal Dean away from him. _His_ Dean. _His fucking Dean_.

When Aidan goes upstairs, Dean's coming out of the bathroom with his hair gelled, reeking of Calvin Klein.

“Your boyfriend's a dick, by the way,” says Aidan.

“I know. Do I look alright?”

“You look great.” He does, actually. For a three foot Kiwi, Dean scrubs up well. There's really no middle ground with him, though; he either looks like a slob or a snob. “So you're going to Graham's exhibit?”

“Oh, Luke told you, did he? I didn't invite him, he invited himself.”

Which isn't really an answer, is it?

“Yeah, but... you're taking him to meet Graham?” Aidan asks tentatively.

“Why not? I've met Richard.”

“Yeah, but you're not...”

Dean looks at him. “What?”

“You're not my boyfriend.”

“So? Look, I'm not gonna jump him in front of Luke, if that's what you mean. Or at all. I told you, everything's fine between Graham and I now.”

Actually, Dean has made no mention of this at all. In fact, he seems to have gone out of his way to _avoid_ the issue of Graham in recent weeks.

“Just seems a little strange, is all,” Aidan mumbles.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” says Dean, and it's such a snap of a voice that Aidan actually blinks in surprise. “Tell Luke not to come? Tell you what, he can stay here and _you_ can hang out with him all day.”

“What? No!”

“Yeah, exactly. So just back off, would you? I have enough to worry about without you guilt tripping me all the time.”

“I'm not guilt tripping you! I'm _concerned_ about you. I mean...” Aidan lowers his voice, conscious of the house's thin walls. “You could just break up with him, you know. Like you were going to.”

“No, I can't!” Dean's voice, too, lowers to a mere hiss of a sound. “Do you know how nice he's trying to be? It's exhausting!”

“Alright, alright! Jesus, anyone'd think it's hard work to have everyone like you all the time.”

Dean looks at him. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” he says flatly.

“No –”

“Because it's not funny. You're being extremely unfunny right now.”

“Okay. Sorry. Don't forget your watch.”

Dean lets out a frustrated little growl, about as threatening as a lion cub, and shoves past Aidan to get to his bedroom.

 

 

 

It's just Aidan and Adam for dinner tonight. It's Aidan's turn to cook, so he's made really goddamned gourmet bacon sandwiches. Adam pretends to care about the lack of vegetables, but eats four sandwiches and doesn't bat an eyelid when Aidan puts sugar in his tea.

“£1 drinks at the Union tonight,” Adam gets out through a mouthful. “Up for it?”

“Nah, not tonight, man.”

“What do you mean? You never miss student night.”

“Yeah, but I'm...” And he _almost_ says it, almost says _I'm hanging out with Russ_. But it's even harder to lie to Adam than to Richard. Like, it's _Adam_. Lying to Adam is like kicking a puppy in the face. “I have this... thing. With my tutor. A seminar thing.”

That's not exactly a lie, is it?

“Oh right,” says Adam, and Aidan thinks he's going to question it but, weirdly, he doesn't. “Right, okay then.”

After dinner Aidan grabs a shower and dresses carefully in tight black jeans and a denim shirt. They're both fairly difficult to peel off his body, especially in any amount of haste (seriously, he's tried), but since it looks as though he isn't going to be getting a leg over for some time it doesn't really matter.

He towel dries his hair and spritzes on a little aftershave, enough for it to be noticeable but not for Adam to go mental over it again. Then he picks up his bag and, unsure what he really needs to take, shoves in his wallet and Richard's copy of The Hobbit that Aidan finished a couple of days ago.

When he goes downstairs, Adam's watching RuPaul's Drag Race.

“You look nice,” he says, but there's no malice in it, no suspicion, and there's a genuine little smile on his elfin face. Aidan suddenly feels bad for leaving him.

“Thanks. I think Dean'll be back soon.”

It's another warm night, but he gets the bus to the English department anyway. A little kid points a toy gun at him as soon as he sits down. Maybe she knows he's going to have it off with his professor in ten minutes or so. Some freaky child's intuition. He turns away from her and stares out of the window, feeling uncomfortable. Kids are weird and annoying.

The building's pretty empty when he gets there, although he does hear the scratching of a pen outside of Hadlow's office and has to creep past surreptitiously. Not that people aren't allowed in after hours, and not that it's weird for students to have private sessions with their tutors, but Richard would probably blow up about it if he thought Aidan wasn't being careful enough.

Then again, Richard isn't exactly being as careful as possible either. Aidan doesn't understand why they can't just meet up at his place. He knocks on the door, and a sleepy looking Richard opens it to him, a smile on his face.

“You're early,” he says, sounding rather pleased about it.

They kiss softly, but before Aidan can even think about extending it in some form Richard pulls away.

Okay then.

“Did you bring your work?” he asks.

“Finished it today!”

“Oh.” Richard looks at him almost in disbelief for a moment, which is kind of insulting. “Want to help me mark papers then?”

“Er...”

“It's first year stuff. And it's only a test, so there's an answer sheet.”

“Right then.”

So Aidan does. He sits down and helps Richard mark papers. It's not that he minds. Just being alone with Richard is enough to set his blood bubbling pleasantly, and it's not like they have to touch constantly or shower one another with the sweetest compliments or write poetry about their future together or anything like that.

But Aidan always thought affairs were supposed to be a little more... well, _affair-y_. Always thought they were, by their very nature, romantic. About the most romantic thing they're doing now is sitting close enough together for their forearms to occasionally brush. Sometimes being alone with Richard makes Aidan feel positively Byronic. Right now, he can't imagine Byron spent much time marking papers during his little liaisons.

Twenty or so minutes pass in silence, and Aidan's about to complain when Richard glances up at him and smiles and, seemingly on a whim, leans in to kiss him.

That's more like it! Now they can – oh. Richard's gone back to his papers.

“Richard,” Aidan says, a little impatiently, “this is really boring. Can we do something else for a bit?”

Richard looks sort of nervous at that. “Well, I've really got to get these marked for tomorrow.”

“Just for a bit, as a break. My hand's cramping having to draw all these crosses.”

He tosses his pen down. After a moment Richard does the same.

“What do you want to do?” he asks tentatively.

Aidan has several rather well-formed ideas.

“Well,” he says, stretching languidly in a way he hopes is alluring rather than clumsy, “we could just have a chat. Hey, I finished The Hobbit.”

Richard brightens considerably at this. “Did you? What did you think?”

“Ah, well. It was a bit sad. But I liked it.”

“It's magic, isn't it? I read it for the first time when I was eight years old, and I walked around telling everyone I was a dwarf for weeks.”

That's sweet. Aidan thinks back to when he was eight years old. He remembers stealing from the corner shop and throwing mud at people.

“What else do you read?” he asks, because he doesn't think a conversation about Tolkien will leave Richard with a particularly good impression of him. “You know, in your spare time, I mean.”

Richard looks a little overwhelmed, like the answers are too extensive to relate. Which, really, they probably are.

“I don't know. All the usual ones, I suppose. Coleridge, Wordsworth, Blake.”

“They're all poets.”

“I _love_ poetry. I did my dissertation on a comparison of Shakespeare's sonnets and narratives.”

“Bet you had fun.”

Richard must notice Aidan's dry tone, because he laughs.

“Come on, Aidan, everyone has a writer that gets them going. Though I must confess when I was younger I picked some of my favourites for the most ridiculous reasons. I had a rather embarrassing love affair with Thomas Cooper, purely because he was from Leicester.”

“No one good's ever come out of Dublin.”

“What utter rot! Beckett, Swift, Goldsmith, Joyce?”

“I hated Goldsmith _and_ Joyce. They made my life hell when I was seventeen.”

“Oscar Wilde was from Dublin,” Richard says with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, and look where he ended up moving to. He had his head screwed on right.”

“You can't hate it that much. What about Yeats?”

Aidan considers this. “I like Yeats. We used to have this teacher at primary school who was obsessed with him, used to read him to us every day before the bell rang. My mum was horrified when she found out. For a teacher to spew the words of a _non-Catholic_ Irishman! Well. She had a thing or two to say about that.”

That earns him another smile, but Richard doesn't say anything. It's as though he actually wants Aidan to go on.

“I liked the ones about war best, which I suppose shows what a maudlin little fuck I was. But there's one I remember. You know, the one everyone knows.”

“'The Second Coming'?”

“No, you know. The one they use in all the films.” Aidan smiles. “'He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven'? It's beautiful, but tell anyone you like it and they'll think you're a pretentious little wank.”

“Recite it for me?” Richard blurts out.

“What?”

He smiles again, shyer this time, colour tinging the sharp cut of his cheekbones. “If you remember it. I'm not going to pass up the chance to hear Yeats in a Dublin accent.”

And Aidan laughs at that, because _honestly_.

“I can't, I feel embarrassed.”

But he doesn't really, and he knows the poem perfectly, and maybe _Equilibrium_ helped him out a little there but who cares? He shifts a little closer and closes his hand over Richard's.

There's a slight possibility he's going to fuck this up. He inhales slowly and opens his mouth.

“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, enwrought with golden and silver light,” he begins, very softly, “the blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and light and the half light...”

He stops then. Richard's so close, and Aidan's head is hot and glowing. The string of words suddenly seems half-senseless now, but candid, too, as though he's written them himself. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. He clears his throat gently.

“I... I would spread the cloths under your feet. But I, being poor, have only my dreams.” A pause, barely there. “I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

It's the end of it that makes him realise he's no longer looking at Richard, but at the space between them, where Aidan's spare hand is set on his knee, and Richard's is inching towards it. Aidan knows they're going to kiss. He feels the ache of expectation of it in his thighs, fingers, chest. Richard's breathing is heavy, too, and it's like Aidan's hearing it for the first time, and the situation is so cream-dripping sweet that it would be unbearable were it not so damned poignant.

The door is shut between them and the world, and Richard pulls him in and kisses him.

There's something expert, almost new, almost vicious in the way their lips press together. It's long and motionless, and soon Aidan has his fingers twisting hard in the fabric of Richard's shirt. But then Richard's pulling away, saying something to Aidan which might be garbled compliments but Aidan isn't sure, and it doesn't matter anyway because he's pulling Richard back for another kiss to shut him up, and it works and Richard shuts up and they kiss and kiss until somehow they're both standing and Richard is crowding him back against the desk.

The blinds are pulled against the lawn and the orange evening. Aidan's fingers slide clumsily across papers and pens, sending all manner of bits and pieces scattering to the floor. There's an arm tight around his waist, fingers splayed on the small of his back and holding him captive, like Richard thinks there's a chance they might slip apart.

Aidan's heart is hammering now. His hands, which have begun to feel rather useless and detached, suddenly find themselves again, and his fingers move quickly to the buckle of Richard's belt. Richard lets him get as far as undoing it completely, as far as sliding the leather strap out and away, as far as pulling the zipper on his trousers down.

And then fingers, firm and heavy, close around Aidan's wrist.

“Stop, please,” Richard breathes. “If you don't stop, I'll do something regretful.”

Aidan is torn between enquiring as to what exactly that regretful thing may be, and asking who actually uses the word 'regretful' in sexual situations.

“Why won't you let me touch you?” he asks instead. “Don't you like me?”

“Of course I like you! A stupid amount, for someone I hardly know –”

“You keep saying that, but we've known each other for like, six months!”

“You know what I mean.” Richard breathes out hard, and suddenly backs away, tugging his zipper up again and reaching for his belt all in one smooth motion. “I just don't want things to go too fast. I barely know what I'm doing as it is. There's a... a right time and place for this sort of thing, and it isn't in my boxy little office after hours with Professor Hadlow marking essays next door.”

Aidan lets out a noise halfway between a groan and a snort of laughter.

“Well, when you put it like that...” He cocks his head to the side thoughtfully, considering Richard's ruffled form. “You really _are_ a romantic, aren't you?”

Richard huffs out a laugh of his own. “I'm definitely something.”

He's quiet for a moment, and in the space between now and his next words Aidan straightens up properly and sorts out his shirt where it's rucked up a little around his waist.

“I'd like to take you somewhere,” Richard tells him, soft and sudden. “Next weekend, I mean. When I'm back.”

Aidan looks up from straightening out his clothes. “Yeah? Where?”

Richard hesitates. “Think of it as a surprise. It'll be nice, though. Quiet, somewhere we can... think about things.”

Aidan isn't sure if that sounds appealing or slightly ominous. He smiles all the same.

“Right. Great!” And he tries to show with his grin that yes, it is both right and great. He leans forward again, pressing one last chaste kiss to Richard's lips, hands obediently shoved into his own pockets. “Can't wait.”


	9. Chapter 9

University is nothing like school. School is long days and eight slots of lessons. Same teachers, same clothes, same prison cells and playgrounds, the same meaty boys in the corridors shoving your shoulder for breathing.

University has a way of slipping sneakily away right beneath your nose, quick as a burglar in the night. Blink and you miss it. That's no exaggeration. School is the pond, and uni is the deep blue sea.

Perhaps it's the irregularity of it all. Getting up at nine on Mondays, only to haul yourself out of bed at midday on Tuesday instead. Lounging around doing nothing all day Wednesday but staying up till the early hours drooling out essays on the weekend. Having student nights out on Thursday and being in bed by seven on Friday with a book and a huge mug of tea.

It's been like that for Aidan for the past year and a half. But not this week. This week drags.

Aidan likens it to the first time he discovered (and successfully smuggled into his bedroom) a girly pop star magazine in a newsagent's in Tallaght. To his astonishment he found it chock full of glistening, shirtless men, a repressed Catholic's dream. He managed to live three quarters of his teenage years without this sort of thing and then, once he possessed it, often found himself wondering what on earth he actually did without it before.

That's what it's like with Richard. Because sure, Aidan's fancied the Westwood pants off him since September of last year, but now that he's not here for _five measly days_  it seems like Aidan has socking great bagfuls of time on his hands and little desire to fill them with anything even remotely productive.

“Clean the house?” Adam suggests, but Aidan assumes he's joking. He offers to help Dean with his art project but Dean doesn't even look amused by the idea. When he lifts his head from the canvas, slowly, there is a distinct look of _fear_ in his eyes.

Adam's birthday is coming up soon, and Aidan takes it upon himself to start planning his party. He gets about as far as deciding there needs to be a vodka bar before giving up. Adam has a lot of actor friends; they'll probably come up with some elaborate gay-slash-musical themed costume do. Aidan can't compete with those fancy motherfuckers.

He doesn't even know what to get Adam as a present. Last year his birthday had clashed with one of Aidan's Lit exams, and he'd forgotten to get Adam a present at all. He only half-jokingly offered a blowjob by way of a gift. Funnily enough, it hadn't gone down well.

One day Aidan tries talking to Dean about gift ideas instead. He's in the living room on his laptop, Photoshop open, recreating the Mona Lisa or something. Aidan sits down next to him and gets about ten seconds into the conversation before Dean snaps, “Jesus Christ, will you quit bothering me when I'm busy?”

Now, if Aidan were a more sensitive guy, he might suggest Dean is going through a “rough patch”. But he is not a sensitive guy, he is not a psychology student, nor he is a poet generously attempting to rationalize Dean's behaviour.

Really, there's no two ways about it: just lately Dean is being kind of a dick.

Aidan's worried about him, of course, but he's only human. He doesn't take kindly to being told by his best friend, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off. So he does what he always does in moments of confusion: he resolves to talk to Adam about it.

“Adam,” he says on Wednesday morning, after Dean's left to go to his Photography seminar, “on a scale of one to ten, how likely do you think it is that Dean is pregnant?”

He sort of expects Adam to choke on his tea or something. It's a surprise when he calmly lowers his cup to the table and says, “About seven.”

Aidan collapses a little with relief. “He _is_ being a dick, isn't he? It's not just me that's noticed?”

“Yesterday I did the washing up and asked if he would dry the pots. He told me I sounded like his 'fucking mother' and stormed off upstairs.” Adam takes a prim sip of tea. “I think we can expect a little bundle of joy to be joining us very soon.”

“Deano Jr. That'd be terrifying.”

“It'd be the shortest, laziest baby ever. Probably too lazy to cry, which would be a bonus.”

They both snigger a little meanly.

“It's just weird,” says Aidan. “I mean, _you're_ the one who's always stressing about things.”

“And you're the one with the bad temper.”

“Dean's the one who broke his toes playing frisbee and didn't go to the hospital for three days because he couldn't be bothered. I think something must be really bugging him. He never gets upset about anything.”

Except, a small voice reminds Aidan, for that one time he got rejected by Graham and cried into his Stormtrooper mug for two hours.

“And he hasn't told you about it?” says Adam.

“No. Should he have done?”

“Well, he wouldn't tell _me_.”

Aidan looks at Adam's face then, searching for signs of sadness. There don't seem to be any.

“Come on, Adam,” he says carefully, “you know you're one of his best friends.”

“I'm the housemate he's living with until he goes back to New Zealand. _You're_ his best friend. If he hasn't told you then we should really start panicking.”

“D'you think?” Aidan nibbles gently on his bottom lip, and decides then and there that he's going to sit down with Dean and have a nice chat with him and ask what's wrong and make him feel much better about himself, whatever the answer.

Dean returns from his Photography seminar in an even worse mood than when he set out. Aidan makes him some tea and offers a biscuit and politely enquires as to what it is that's bothering him. He gets told to shove off and mind his own business.

 _Right then, Dean. Forget it_.

 

 

 

Up in his bedroom, he digs out his second-hand copy of _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ and lies on his bed to read it. He gets through three stanzas of 'Holy Thursday' and then drops the book in boredom.

It's not that he doesn't get it – honestly, it's so explicitly maudlin you'd have to be a Physics student to miss its point – but it's just so... _uninspiring_. So, for lack of a better word, boring. Which is awful, really, because it's William Blake, and William Blake is kind of a Big Deal, and Richard loves William Blake but Aidan thinks William Blake is dreary as fuck.

He applied for English because he's good at digging for meanings which probably aren't really there, and at reeling off intelligent-sounding essays, and because honestly, it's a pretty fantastic degree to have. He's always suppressed that slightly ashamed part of him which acknowledges that, for the most part, Aidan doesn't really connect with a lot of literature on a 'higher level'.

See, Richard's eyes shine when he talks about this stuff. Poetry, especially. It's like they're psalms and he's a prophet chanting them. It's like they really _mean_ something to him.

For Aidan, good poetry is poetry which  _sounds_ poignant,  _sounds_ crass or candid,  _sounds_ like it might mean something. He wants to impress Richard so much, thinks often of the merits of learning something ridiculous like Paradise Lost or Beowulf by heart just to make those blue eyes glow at him instead of at squiggly words on a page.

But he can't care enough about the words to do it. Instead he reels off eight lines of 20th century Irish verse he learnt half from a primary school teacher and half from a Christian Bale film, and pretends he cares about it for reasons other than it sounds like it's got a point to make.

Richard seems to like him a lot, but if he could crack Aidan's head open and peer inside he probably wouldn't think much of him at all.

 

 

 

He knows he's got it bad when Richard finally comes back. Aidan all but topples into the passenger seat of his car, hauling his bag into the back and practically panting with the exertion of trying to get out _just how much_ he missed Richard all week.

Aidan Turner? Needy? Never.

“I'm so glad you're here!”

Richard chuckles at that. “I spoke to you on the phone more times than I spoke to that insufferable team leader.” But he leans across the gear stick and gives Aidan a long kiss anyway. It's alright, they're meeting up round the back of B&Q in the car park. No one ever comes here since it has a reputation for incidents involving a considerable amount of glass bottles.

“S'not the same,” Aidan says when they break apart.

“What's not the same?”

“Well for one, on the phone I don't get to touch you.” He reaches out and very gently flicks the hard line of Richard's cheekbone. “Or see you blush.”

“I don't blush!”

“Please, you blush more than a nun in a strip club. Do take care not to stop, darling.”

“Hm. I'll try my best,” says Richard, a little smile curling his lips as he starts up the car.

“Where you taking me then? Is it far? And did you miss me?”

“It's a surprise, and it's not too far, and I did. Very much.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” Even Richard himself sounds a little surprised. Aidan can't decide whether to be pleased or not. “Have you got your seatbelt on?”

“Yes, _Dad_. Where's all your music? Don't you have a CD player?”

“It's just a radio. I don't usually –”

“Can I put it on? And d'you mind if I open the window? It's boiling in here. Do you know you have a copy of The Aeneid in your glove box?”

“I'm aware,” Richard laughs.

“What's that for then? Bit of easy reading at traffic lights?” Aidan takes the book out and flips through briefly and feels his brain melting out through his eyes.

“Good luck charm. My mother always told me that if you keep any of Virgil's works in your car, you'll never have an accident.”

“Are you serious?”

“No, of course not! Put it back, you're like a burrowing little rabbit.”

Aidan does, but not without a quick grin in Richard's direction. “Sorry. I'm just happy to see you!”

Richard must like this because when they turn on to the motorway he takes one hand off the steering wheel and places it on top of Aidan's.

Most of the journey passes by in comfortable silence, largely due to the fact that Aidan's already unloaded the majority of his stories and personal life on to Richard over the phone – all the stuff about Dean and Adam and Adam's birthday, and how he went to all his lectures like a good boy even though receiving the dire as fuck information was like being punched in the face repeatedly for a whole week.

Richard's told him all about the teacher training, and how he now knows how to put a screen keypad on the whiteboard and thinks it's just about one of the most useless skills he's ever obtained, second only to learning how to fire rubber bands at the TV to change the channel (Aidan secretly thinks this the most marvellous talent imaginable, and decides to tell Dean about it when he stops being a prick).

It takes just under an hour to drive there, and the further north they go the clearer it becomes that they're heading into the Lake District. Aidan bites back his complaints, but he really really _really_ hopes they aren't going to be climbing any hills. That is his one big 'no'. Anything else is fine, but hills, no.

Still. At least the weather is beautiful.

They roll up to a gravel car park just before midday. Aidan's never been here before, but he knows from the eroded white sign they're in Ullswater Valley. Ullswater. He's heard that name before.

“This it then?” Aidan peers through the windscreen at the deserted stretch of land before them.

“Yeah, like it?” says Richard, then he rolls his eyes. “Come on, get out.”

“What, are you abandoning me here and driving off?”

“Depends whether or not you're going to be on your very best behaviour today, Mr Turner.”

“Careful, Professor, your kinks are showing,” but Aidan opens the door and climbs out all the same, sliding his bag along with him.

The weather's even hotter up here. It envelopes him like a cloud as soon as he stands up, though there's the tiniest breeze, just. As they set off down the adjoining lane, which runs for thirty yards beneath a hedge of rich green, the heat pushes everything out from the trees, and the air is drugged with the sharpness of summer.

“Are we walking far?”

“Don't be such a student, Aidan.”

The end of the lane is met with a gate, worn and wooden and wonky in a charming, Milne-esque sort of way, and beyond it there is distance and grass and weather, and then something spectacular.

“Ullswater Lake,” Richard says needlessly. “See it?”

“Bit hard to miss,” says Aidan, and already he's hopping over the gate and hauling his bag more comfortably on to his shoulder as he takes the view right in, sucking it all up like fresh smoke and inhaling.

 _Christ_.

It is blue. Such a boneless, shameless blue, quivering gently beneath streams of late morning sunlight. Before it, on the grass, there is no one else, and beyond it only tiny boats, thin as thumb prints, towered by a screen of hulking mountain and relentless blue sky.

Aidan opens his bag and grapples for his phone and from the gate takes a picture. It's not quite enough. As soon as Richard is beside him again Aidan takes his hand and begins pulling him down the slope of the field, his movements almost involuntary.

The closer they get, the more he sees yellow.

“Is that...?”

And Aidan would never admit it, but he runs the last few feet.

“You didn't bring me here,” he says, grinning and panting for breath. “Oh, you're _such_ a romantic!”

Richard, padding the last few steps, is smiling pretty broadly himself.

“No, no, this isn't romance,” he says, and in a swift move that surprises even Aidan Richard comes up behind him and wraps his arms tight around his waist. “This is nature.”

Before them stand daffodils, waving in the warm spring breeze. Ullswater daffodils, of Ullswater Lake.

Aidan twists in his arms and kisses him. “Go on then, Romeo. Say the lines.”

“The lines?”

“Mm, the lines. I wandered lonely as a cloud...”

“That floats on high o'er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd – a host of golden daffodils.”

Richard's voice is sweet and low in his ear, and Aidan shivers despite the warmth. He glances up, sees nailed to a tree a square of worn wood, a plaque politely finishing the last two lines for them:  _Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze_.

“Course, they're not really golden, are they?” He slips from Richard's embrace a short moment to inspect one bobbing flower. “More dopey sunshine yellow.”

“Doesn't quite have the same ring to it though, does it? 'A host of dopey sunshine yellow daffodils'? Do you know these are protected? They won't let you pick them.”

Aidan scoffs. “Who won't let me? And besides, what are they gonna do, eat me?” He crouches down, extends an arm to brush one gentle flower. “I could easily just put my fingers around its stem and –”

“Aidan, no!”

He throws his head back and laughs.

“Christ, your face! You look like I'm about to commit _murder_.” He gives the flower a deft flick so it jostles madly from side to side. “I think you like these daffodils more than you like me, Rich.”

“Well, the daffodils don't mock me.”

“I'm not mocking you!” Aidan stands up straight again, dusting imaginary mud off his jeans. “Hey, you don't really think that, do you? It's really beautiful here, I'm glad you brought me.” Because there's no one around but the men sailing those tiny painted boats, he leans in and kisses Richard softly. “Really. Thank you.”

“You don't think it terribly boring or twee? We can go if you do.”

“No!” Aidan says, a little too quickly. “No, I want to stay. It's incredible, really incredible.”

Richard's whole face relaxes in a way that really shouldn't be endearing on a thirty-one year old man but is, very much so.

Naturally, Aidan is the first to lie down in the grass. It's warm beneath his back, sun-baked and soft, and with only a little hesitation Richard follows suit. He's careful not to let his shoes brush the cluster of daffodils at his feet. Above them, the sky is cloudless.

“This is amazing,” Aidan murmurs.

“It always is. Would it be totally nauseating to say I used to come here as a child?”

Aidan turns to him, hands behind his head, and grins. “Little clichéd, perhaps, but I'll let it slide.”

“Course it was a lot further to drive. About three hours. Worth it, though.”

“And you came here with who, your parents?”

“Grandfather,” Richard corrects. “He was a sailor of sorts. Had a little yacht my father helped him paint. Sometimes we went to Windermere, but it was always full of canoes. Here was always my favourite.”

“Because of the daffodils?”

“No, no. I was a little more Whizzer and Chips than Wordsworth back then. No, I liked Ullswater because it was... quiet. And small. Introverted, I suppose, like me. I'd lie here and it was like no one else in the world could find me.”

“And you liked that when you were a kid?”

“I've always liked peace and quiet. Being on my own... or sharing space with another person. Just one.”

Aidan smiles at him, shifts a little closer, enough to splay his hand on Richard's chest. It's warm beneath his fingers.

“Weren't you like that?” Richard asks.

“Like what?”

“Quiet? As a child?”

“I was in south Dublin street gangs when I was a kid. I was a little bastard.”

“Would you be offended if I told you I could very easily imagine that?”

Aidan gives him a gentle shove, and Richard laughs.

“My life _was_ 'Dubliners',” Aidan says. “Never underestimate the truth of that book. What was it like where you grew up? Was it nice?”

“Nice enough, I suppose. That was small and quiet too. Other than the houses there was a corner shop and a post office. That was about it.”

“Bet you were glad to leave. I mean, I know you said you like that sort of thing but once you've seen it all, you've seen it all.”

“Oh, yes. Seventeen years in Huncote was quite enough.” Richard peers down at him. “What about you? Will you ever go back to Dublin? I suppose you never _stop_ discovering things there.”

Aidan shrugs. “I dunno. I guess I'll have to. Finish my degree and go live with my parents again for a bit and get a job.” He smiles, though he doesn't really feel like it. “Be normal and boring.”

A hand comes up to cup the side of his face, gently forcing him to turn.

“I don't think you could ever be boring, Aidan Turner,” says Richard, and Aidan smiles and means it this time, and twists to kiss the palm holding him.

He knows what Richard meant before. Right now, Aidan is convinced they are the only two people in the world. The earth is empty for miles around them bar the sparrows making their late morning calls, and only the daffodils move, and the boats on the lake, but even with those it's difficult to imagine they're being piloted by any brain beyond the gentle breeze which pushes them.

It is so warm here. Soon he's drifting into sleep. He catches the sounds though not the words of Richard's voice, a lulling monologue vibrating softly against his ear where Aidan's shifted his head to rest on Richard's chest. The space his eyes can see is filled with soft blue cotton and hawthorn and grass, white glints on the lake and, at his feet, a host of golden daffodils. And Aidan begins to think he gets this poetry thing. He does.

 

 

 

Lunch is a table for two in a country pub, the best steak sandwich Aidan's ever tasted and a pint of nicely chilled cider. At one point he gets a bit of melted cheese on his upper lip (there may be some debate as to how intentional this move was) and Richard leans across, apparently without even thinking about it, and swipes at it with his thumb.

A hoard of Japanese tourists stare openly them, but the pub's landlady seems positively enamoured and brings them extra condiments and two more half pints, perhaps as some absurd thank you. Aidan isn't sure what for.

They retire to the garden with their drinks, and Richard holds his hand beneath their table. Aidan doesn't want to leave. Doesn't want to go back to his gloomy terraced house where Dean sulks and Adam frets perpetually. Doesn't want the day to slip from his fingers.

But then Richard says it, says, “We might think about getting back on the road now,” and Aidan's heart plummets.

“Yeah, okay.”

“What's wrong?”

“I just...” Aidan's fingers tighten round Richard's. “It's been a really nice day.”

“I didn't say you had to go home.” Richard licks his lips, in that way Aidan is starting to realise means he's nervous. “We should get back to town before it goes dark, but you don't have to leave. We could go to the office. Or... or to my house, perhaps.”

“Your house?”

“Well, we don't have to, I just thought... I mean, I could make you dinner later. Or something.”

“Great!”

Richard – bless him – actually looks _relieved_ , as though he's been expecting Aidan to say no. Already Aidan is dwelling excitedly on what he's just agreed to; to see Richard's home, where he lives and works and sleeps, is something he never realistically entertained the prospect of. At least, not so soon. Perhaps this little piece of paradise is doing funny things to Richard, too. Aidan isn't complaining.

They finish the cider and pay and thank the giddy landlady, and once they're back in the car Richard leans across and kisses Aidan very gently. It feels like a word, or a promise, or something plainly good.


	10. Chapter 10

Richard's house is a Victorian terrace full of stripped wood and cream and damask print and wool. The fireplace in the lounge has been restored, and the alcoves are stuffed with well-thumbed books. In hindsight, Aidan shouldn't have expected anything different.

“It's really nice!” he gushes. It's like something out of the Littlewoods catalogue. There isn't even a television. One of the shelves has been daintily lined with tiny glass animals, carved icons of more exotic continents, as though Richard has some colourful history with Africa or India: spindly orange giraffes and turquoise zebras, twinkling burgundy crocodiles, casting chromatic shadows against the walls in the early evening sun. There are pictures too, mahogany frames holding flash-lit photographs of smart, smiling family members, propped stylishly along the mantelpiece and windowsill.

Aidan looks at everything, touching his fingers very gently against the photo frames and book spines, though not quite trusting himself to go near the glass animals.

“You can put your bag here,” says Richard, gesturing beside the couch. “Take a seat wherever you like.”

There is an amazing armchair, and a dark green Chesterfield. Of course there's a dark green Chesterfield. Aidan takes a seat in the chair.

“Is this your pipe smoking chair?” he asks, wriggling against the hard leather seat and splaying his hands out on each grand arm. He feels like a Bond villain in this thing.

“Afraid not,” Richard chuckles. “It was here when I moved in. Looks great but it's like sitting on a slab of stone.”

Aidan sees his point. Already his arse is beginning to go numb. He switches and flops on to the couch instead. There's a sort of guilty, furtive pleasure in lying here, in Richard's space, in Richard's home. A barrier crossed.

“Would you like a drink?” Richard asks. “We can have good coffee here, not like the stuff at the office.”

“Have you got anything a bit stronger?” Aidan asks cheekily. He's still feeling woozy from the heady mixture of cider and heat and Richard.

Richard tuts, but when he returns from the kitchen it's with a glass of orange juice shot with Bacardi. “Sorry it's not whiskey. I don't know if I'm that irresponsible yet.”

Aidan grins and sips the drink, a pleasant shiver nipping him as it bristles warm in his throat and belly. He finds himself feeling strangely elated, flirtatious, and he flops back on to the sofa and nudges Richard with his foot to get him to come closer.

“Sit down,” he says, and Richard does. When it becomes clear, however, that he isn't going to lie down too, Aidan pulls himself upright and leans against him. He tips his glass towards himself a little.

“Thanks for the drink,” he says. “Aren't you having one?”

“No, no, I don't want to drink too much. Tomorrow, I've...”

“Stuff to do, right.” He pokes Richard very gently with his finger. “You're always so busy, Richard.”

Maybe the poke is the catalyst. Richard winds an arm around Aidan's shoulders, tugs him close and presses a kiss to his temple. Six months ago this sort of intimacy would have been thrilling. And it is, it still is. But it's sort of soft, too. As though it's never really supposed to have been anything but.

“I wasn't going to say that. It's just...” His blue eyes flicker carefully over Aidan's face. “You could stay.”

Aidan stares back at him. Richard's expression isn't exactly unreadable, but it doesn't give much away, so from this point on it's sort of like taking a really massive chance. Aidan takes a quick, fortifying swig from his glass. Then he puts it down on the coffee table and takes Richard's face in his hands and kisses him.

It's different to how it normally is: firm, almost desperate, as if both of them are trying to be declared winner upon breaking apart. Already Aidan can feel Richard's tongue licking along the seam of his mouth, and he parts his lips to let him in, to meet him halfway and taste him.

The thing is, such a thing as bad kissers do exist, and liking someone as much as Aidan likes Richard can rarely cover such a lack of expertise up. But Richard, for all his shyness, is such a terribly _good_ kisser, and Aidan wonders where he learnt it. If he learnt it at all. Richard very much comes across as the type who is unbearably good at everything he tries to do, and doesn't even realise it.

The last person Aidan kissed before Richard called him Eamon, slapped him twice on the arse and bit his bottom lip so hard the next morning it was swollen slightly and Dean called him Fishface for days.

He's come a long way, he thinks in bewilderment, as Richard pushes him back against the couch. He never wants to stop.

He can already feel himself growing hard in his jeans, under the attack of Richard's increasingly passionate kisses, and it's embarrassing and thrilling in equal measures. He's torn between shifting to hide it, and pressing himself up against Richard to show him exactly how he feels, exactly what he wants.

As it happens, Aidan doesn't have to do either. Richard pulls away and sits back on his haunches, his broad chest rising and falling in rapid little pants as his eyes fix determinedly on Aidan's face.

“Aidan,” he breathes, “you're so...”

Aidan tenses, winces, waits. _You're so young_ , it'll be, or _you're so hard already, bloody hell_.

It's a surprise when Richard opens his mouth again only to tell him, “You're so lovely. You are, really.”

Aidan wants to say something beautiful. He wants to be Jimmy Stewart and tell Richard he'll throw a lasso around the moon for one more kiss.

Instead he blurts out, “Can we go upstairs?”

It's out there now. A snap decision too quick to take back. Richard stares at him, but his expression is unreadable, and it's difficult to tell if he's looking down _at_ him or down _on_ him.

“Christ, at least say forget it,” Aidan gets out eventually, rolling his eyes. “The silence is killing me.”

Richard leans towards the coffee table and takes the unfinished rum and downs it. It's clearly not enough to stem the obvious nerves, because then he tells Aidan, “You go up. First on the right. I'll be there in a minute.”

Aidan licks his lips. “Right,” he says, and he finds himself shivering and swallowing with excitement and a kind of latent fear. “Right, then.” He gets up from underneath Richard and slips out of the room.

 

 

 

Richard's bedroom is like the rest of the house – dark wood and plain walls and a stylish, if a little distant, sense of homeliness. But there are marks of personality in here, quite aside from the further amount of books piled on every surface. There are paintings on the walls – people and places that Aidan doesn't recognise – and photographs and little boxes and papers on the tops of the dressers, ties hanging haphazardly off the wardrobe doors, a patchwork quilt strewn across the bed.

It is not the leather and steel of regular bachelor bedrooms. It is warm and cluttered and the air is permeated with Richard's soft, soapy scent.

Aidan flops back on to the bed, inhaling great lungfuls. It feels sweetly momentous to lie here, the warmth of the evening spring sun glowing against his face from the bay window. He feels good, but wary, too, conscious of the fact that Richard might change his mind.

Change his mind from what? What are they even going to do?

Minutes later, he hears the sound of feet on the stairs. Richard pushes the door open and peeks in, as though this isn't even his bedroom. Aidan thinks about sitting up but in the end he stays exactly where he is, lying against the sheets.

Richard seems to smile and frown at the same time, like he's happy but somehow thinks he shouldn't be. He crosses to the bed and lies down next to Aidan, curling to the side of him. They lie there for some time, looking at each other.

“This has been the best day of the year so far,” Aidan says after a while. His fingers have found their way to Richard's shirt front, and they begin to unbutton them.

“Surely not,” says Richard.

“I mean it. It's alright if it's not been that for you, but I... well, I've never had anyone take me somewhere, you know.... nice before.”

Richard reaches out to put a hand in Aidan's hair. Aidan thinks at first it's supposed to be by way of consoling him – for having such a lousy string of past relationships, perhaps – but then the fingers tighten a little, and Richard is tugging him forward for a kiss.

It doesn't last long, but when it ends they don't move apart. They're close enough for their noses to brush now. Aidan knows his eyes are drowsy, and his skin can't look too good from prickling in the sun all day, but he can't find it in himself to feel self-conscious.

“I wish I could take you to other places more often,” Richard tells him. “I'm sorry I'm closing you up behind a door.”

“I don't mind,” says Aidan, and then he considers the excruciating kitsch value of his next thought and in the end voices it anyway: “I mean, you're behind it with me.”

That makes Richard smile.

It's slow after that. Richard leans up and presses their lips together, and soon begins to undress him with such careful fingers that Aidan wants to kiss him again for his trouble, and does so frequently, so that by the time he's finally naked against cool, wonderfully soft sheets, nearly half an hour has passed, and Richard's still in his clothes.

He sweeps one strong hand down Aidan's side, trailing it over his stomach and chest, grazing his nipples briefly. Aidan starts to feel a little silly then. He's never had a problem with his body before; sex has always been this quick, perfunctory act, most often in the dark, most often with a brain swamped by alcohol.

But Richard just has this way of making him feel so  _aware_. Aidan's body is all pale skin and dark, dark hair, and there's a patch on his chest where the dusting doesn't quite grow right amongst the rest, from a horrific bout of drunken waxing a year ago.

Richard doesn't seem to mind. He dips his head and kisses all the way from jutting collarbone to flat belly, back up again to take one nipple gently between his teeth and flick his tongue over it until Aidan's panting. Then he captures Aidan's lips, cups his cheek and licks into his mouth, and every one of Aidan's quiet moans is swallowed up.

Richard moves away only to take off his own clothes and he is gorgeous, so gorgeous that Aidan tells him so whenever their lips aren't moving slowly together. He is lean, smooth and muscled in a way that Aidan never thought real people actually were, least of all English lecturers.

It doesn't make Aidan feel bad, as he thought it might. If anything it makes him feel better, more masculine, almost more desirable. That someone so beautiful is lying on top of him, skin pressed warm on skin, kissing him, breathing out his name. It's a confidence boost, alright. It's incredible.

Time passes in long, sweltering phases of exploration. Aidan gasps when Richard finally curls long fingers into him. They crook to rub at him in all the right ways, carefully and for a long time, until Aidan is trembling with it. His body grows slick and shiny with sweat; his head's thrown back against the pillow which smells overwhelmingly of soft detergent and honeysuckle soap.

And his curls are sticking to his face. Richard's the one who brushes them away, spare hand coming up to slide a thumb down the cut of Aidan's cheekbone afterwards. When he eases his fingers out he calls him _sweetheart_ and kisses him, and Aidan's voice grows soft and needy and bossy with want until the fingers are gone altogether and Richard is replacing them with something better, slicker and harder and much, much hotter.

When he's buried completely inside Aidan and Aidan is panting and twisting beneath him, it feels strange. Not because they're actually doing this - really, finally doing this - but because they haven't already done it before.

They kiss for a long, long time. Aidan has to break it to toss his head back, his fingers digging angry red half-moons into Richard's shoulders, and Richard finally begins to move, slow and sweet like Aidan's on the verge of breaking.

It has never been like this before. This pace, this warmth, this careful, agonizing consideration. Richard sees to his every need to the greatest extent that a man in his position can. He touches Aidan with warm fingers, kisses his whimpers and swallows them whole, lets Aidan bite his shoulder, hard, when he finally comes, spilling between them, feeling himself fall apart.

Aidan thinks they've slipped into something significant when moments later Richard himself gasps, buries his face in Aidan's neck and chokes out his name.

 

 

 

“Hey. Do you write?”

“Hm?”

Aidan licks his dry lips. He's not sure what time it is, but the sun's gone down now. He can still hear the nightjars outside.

“Do you write?” he says again, a little clearer this time. His voice is thick and drowsy, though he hasn't slept much.

Richard, on the other hand, has been asleep a few hours, but his eyes are open now. Aidan can see them glowing sleepily at him in the dark, more so when Richard moves on to his side to look at him properly.

“I don't,” he says, trailing off into a yawn. “I don't write, no. Why?”

“Thought you might.”

“I read, I absorb, I weep.” Richard sniffs and rubs at his eye and flops back down against the pillow again. “I'm not a writer. Are you?”

Aidan isn't. He wishes he were. Then maybe he'd have the right words to say now, when they're lying still and curled together like this, bodies still glazed with sweat. He wants to say extravagant things about how wonderful he thinks Richard is, but while his mind is brimming and keeping him from sleep, it's also blank.

“No,” he says. “I never really... understood the urge.”

“It's purging.”

“Hm?”

“Purging. An exorcism, you know?”

“That's maudlin.”

“It's beautiful. It's always astonished me that someone can _feel_ so much, that the only way they can even begin to cope with it is to write it down. They take their own emotions and manage to turn them into something concrete.” Richard turns to look at him, the sound of his hair against the pillow a soft swish in the dark. “I just think that's so beautiful. That someone might feel so much.”

“Then maybe neither of us have felt much at all,” Aidan jokes.

“I think I have,” Richard says. “I think I just... want to keep it a little longer.”

Aidan props himself up on his elbow and kisses his cheek. Richard wraps a warm, bare arm around him.

“We're too precious,” Aidan mumbles.

“Sickening really, isn't it?”

“Well, we don't need to tell anyone. Keep it to ourselves.” Aidan unwinds an arm from around Richard's waist to press a finger to his lips. “Just a little longer.”

 

 

 

He wakes properly hours later in light, the morning sun casting a dewy lozenge across the bedsheets. Richard's gone. Aidan finds him downstairs in the kitchen, making breakfast. There are no sugary cereals or fry ups which is a bit disconcerting, but he eats wholemeal toast and surprisingly it doesn't taste like vomit.

They sit together at the breakfast bar to eat, listening to the radio in companionable silence (yes, the radio, Richard listens to the radio - Radio 4 and everything). Aidan thinks belatedly of Dean and Adam, a little guilty that they might be wondering where he is. He should have at least texted. He thinks about doing it now, but his bag's in the lounge and he doesn't want to move.

Richard, of course, can read his mind.

“Do you want to get home to your friends?”

“Not unless you want me to go.”

“You know I don't.”

“Then can I stay a bit, please? I'm still determined to discover your television.”

He doesn't, but after breakfast he discovers the claw foot bathtub upstairs, and happily allows Richard to follow him into it.

It's almost five o'clock by the time he gets home. The sun is beating down and he feels good, so good, fresh and happy and weirdly free, even if Richard did have to drop him off a block away from home.

But then he walks in through the front door, which is slightly ajar, and almost immediately knows something isn't quite right.

He edges into the lounge. Dean is curled up on the couch in a rumpled t-shirt and jeans, bathed in the flickering light of the television. It's muted on an old black and white film. Aidan wonders why the sound isn't on, when he realises Dean is asleep and his head is pressing against the remote. Suddenly the television blares and Aidan jumps in fright, only for Dean to tilt his head and unwittingly mute it again.

Aidan moves to kneel at his side and gently lifts Dean's head to take the remote, turning around and switching the TV off altogether. The room slips into darkness, the early evening sun doing little to light them up through the window.

Immediately Aidan can smell the alcohol on Dean's breath, and the stale, woody smoke, and when he glances down he sees empty cans littering the carpet, some of them rolling half under the couch. It looks like some crude set up for a tramp in a film, and Aidan sighs as he shifts his knee where an empty Embassy packet is crumpled beneath it.

The cigarettes are stubbed out haphazardly on the coffee table. It's a wonder Dean hasn't set the fucking house on fire.

“Deano?” Aidan tries softly, hands still on either side of Dean's head. “Dean, wake up, mate.”

“Aidan?” he mumbles, eyes still closed.

“Yeah, it's me.” And it's a joke, really, isn't it, that Dean decides to get piss drunk and wrecked the one time Aidan is out of the house for a single night. “You think you can sit up?”

“Just let me sleep.”

“Dean –”

“Let me _sleep_.” Dean bats out blindly, snuggling down into the hard arm of the sofa. “Christ, let me sleep.”

“I think you might regret it if you go to sleep here. You've had a lot to drink and – Dean, you haven't _taken_ anything, have you?”

“Oh my God, you're precious.”

Aidan tries to quell his irritation at the quip and shifts to sit on the couch beside his ruined friend. At the sudden depression of the cushions, Dean's eyes flutter a little. They're an ugly bloodshot red. Aidan begins to panic. The afternoon's barely ended; Dean shouldn't _be_ like this.

In desperation, he casts his mind back to Sixth Form PSHE, trying to see past the haze of rolled up paper balls and scribbled notes and boredom to the information they were actually given. There were six steps to get through when dealing with a pissed-up mate, but he only remembers three. Still, three is better than none. His teachers would be proud.

Dean's lips aren't blue, that's one of them. Aidan grapples for his hands, but they aren't cold or clammy. They're warm and dry, and he squeezes them briefly without even thinking about it.

He tries to find Dean's pulse next, but Dean swats him away.

“What are you _doing_?” he slurs.

“Is your heart going fast? Like, really fast?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“ _Yes_. Please go away. You've been out all night. What's another few hours?”

Aidan feels a pang of guilt at that he tries to ignore. He gets up, leaving the invalid that is Dean for a moment to go into the kitchen. All of their glasses are unwashed. They've been sitting in the sink God knows how long, and funnily enough it's that which suddenly makes Aidan realise Adam isn't here. Of all the bloody times.

He finds a clean mug instead and fills it with water, and when he goes back into the lounge he presses it into Dean's hands.

“Drink this.”

But Dean is being awkward. “No.”

“Please?”

“No, I'll throw up.”

“At least sit up and talk to me for a bit then.”

“Why, so we can have a nice girly chat about how you were out all night getting laid?” Dean mumbles, and he pushes at the cup of water so hard it sloshes all over Aidan's jeans. He swears and puts it down a little too hard on the coffee table. He doesn't want to deal with this. It shouldn't be his job.

“Is that why you've done this?” he asks a little too snippily, wiping at his damp jeans. “Because I wasn't here?”

Dean scoffs drunkenly. “No. Don't flatter yourself, Turner, don't need you that much.”

“What then? Why?”

“Why _not_?”

“Look, you've got yourself into a right state.”

“I don't care.”

“ _I_ do.”

“No, you don't,” says Dean, and it almost sounds like a sob. “No one cares about me.”

“Oh my God, Dean, I don't have the strength to deal with this. Can you please just pull yourself together and fucking sit up?”

Dean does, far too rapidly because clearly he is trying to prove some sort of point, and his upper body collides hard with Aidan's and they both let out a little _oof_ in protest.

“Watch it,” Aidan groans.

“I'm _drunk_ , what d'you ex _pect_?”

Aidan runs a tired hand through his hair and glances around the room for signs of further worry. Dean's latest painting is on the floor, but it's beautiful, not a mess. He hasn't painted while drunk. That's something, at least. After sobering up, he'd complain like a bitch about the price of a wrecked canvas.

“Why are you drunk?” Aidan asks quietly.

“Because I've been drinking, fuckin' Einstein.”

“Why have you been drinking in the day? And where's Adam?”

Dean shrugs. “Out.”

“And Luke?”

Dean groans, like the name hurts to hear. Aidan must be getting somewhere now. He presses a little further.

“Did you split up with Luke? Is that it?”

“No.”

“Argue then?”

“ _No_. No, no, no, stop asking me questions.”

He leans on Aidan a little pathetically, and Aidan feels his annoyance start to seep away in favour of something which isn't quite pity. It's leaning more towards simple sadness, almost on Dean's behalf.

In the end, Aidan doesn't have to ask any more questions.

“I slept with Graham,” Dean tells him, mumbling it into Aidan's shoulder. “Yeah, I slept with Graham.”

Aidan shouldn't be surprised. Isn't, really. He winds an arm around Dean. “It's alright.”

“It's _not_ , Aidan.” Dean swallows hard, a thick, knotted sound in the back of his throat. “Told you, I didn't break up with Luke. I'm a horrible person.”

His voice breaks a little, and Aidan bites back a sigh. He wishes Dean wouldn't do this, though. It's an awful thought but it's not like Aidan can stop his mind from working in the way it does. Why must Dean insist on doing this stupid fucking stuff? Why does he always have to ruin things?

Aidan's dimly aware that he's the horrible person in this situation, and to try and compensate he tugs Dean closer.

“You're not,” he says into Dean's hair. “People make mistakes, mate. It's just a one time slip, it's not –”

“Twice,” Dean interrupts.

“A two time slip –”

“Two and a half.”

“Fucking hell.” He doesn't want to think what counts as a 'half'. “I mean... look, let's not talk about this now. Let's get you up to bed, yeah?”

Dean twists and grips the front of Aidan's shirt with such urgency that Aidan stops altogether, blinking down at him, at those alarming red eyes.

“Please don't think bad of me,” Dean rushes out, short fingers clenching hard. “You're my best friend, Aid, you know you are, and I don't want you to hate me like Graham does. And Luke's gonna hate me and – and Adam does, Adam hates me –”

“Adam doesn't hate you, no one hates you.” Aidan tries his best to carefully remove Dean's hands from his shirt, but Dean only clutches harder.

“He will, everyone will when they find out what I've done, they'll think I'm a _slut_ –”

“Hey, no one will think that, okay? I promise.”

Perhaps he shouldn't be making such promises at all. Then again, there is an extraordinarily high chance Dean won't remember any of this anyway.

Aidan will forever be bewildered as to exactly how, but with some careful manoeuvring he eventually he manages to get Dean upstairs. It's a slow process, especially since Dean wants to stop every two steps to make sure Aidan still wants to be his friend. Aidan is so exasperated, has said “yes” so many times through gritted teeth, that by the time they make it to Dean's bedroom he isn't entirely sure he's being truthful.

No, that isn't fair. He loves Dean, even hammered, awkward, stubborn Dean. He's his best friend, he'll always be his best friend. He's just being fucking difficult right now.

Aidan gets him on to the bed, hauls him on to his side, and nips back downstairs for the water. This time, when he presses it to Dean's lips, Dean drinks. Admittedly, he gets half of it down his t-shirt, but at least he's starting to try.

“Everything's spinning,” he whimpers.

“Close your eyes.”

Dean does, lets them flutter closed as his head goes slack against the pillows on his unmade bed. His room's such an unusual tip. Dean's always been a walking contradiction; the laziest of the three of them, but also the cleanest and tidiest. Now his bedroom is a colossal hovel.

“Aidan?” he says after a while, and Aidan jumps a little because he thought he'd fallen asleep.

“Yeah?”

“Where d'you go yesterday?”

Aidan reaches to stroke a hand through Dean's hair. It's begun curling at his temples with sweat, and Aidan pushes it back.

“Nowhere, Deano.”

“Don't go tonight, will you?”

“I'm staying here. You go to sleep.”

This time, Dean listens to him. He's out in seconds, snoring softly into his sheets, totally still apart from the barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest. Aidan lifts the covers up over him and takes the mug of water from his curled fingers, setting it on the night stand. Then he toes off his shoes and lies down next to Dean on the bed and tries to ignore the huff of heavy breathing in his ear.

He wishes this were Richard's bed. He wishes he could hear the nightjars outside.


	11. Chapter 11

A better, more strong-willed friend might have stayed there all night. An hour or so of lying next to Dean's sleeping body is enough for Aidan to decide that Dean doesn't need someone watching over him until he wakes up.

The first time Aidan saw Dean properly drunk was a couple of months into first year. They'd gone camping in the Lakes on Halloween weekend with friends neither of them really see anymore. It'd been fine until the sky turned pitch black. Their fire was pretty shitty to see by, and in the end people weren't really sure just how much vodka and just how much coke they were pouring into their mugs.

To put it lightly, Dean got wrecked. They all did, actually. All but Aidan, whose experience at that point stretched about as far as surreptitious swigs from cider bottles around the backs of Irish social clubs.

He didn't know what to do when Dean threw up, and he didn't understand why no one else else seemed to care, and he spent the whole night terrified that Dean might stop breathing. He passed out in a heap of blankets in their tent, wrapped and tangled in them so tightly it was impossible to see his chest, and once or twice Aidan shifted over to him in the night and pressed his head against Dean's body, just to seek out the slightest rise.

Aidan himself went without covers and shivered in their tent until morning, but Dean didn't stop breathing and he didn't choke on his own puke, and Aidan didn't really mind the cold so long as his new best friend from university – his exotic, New Zealand friend who made Aidan laugh till his stomach hurt – was alright.

Aidan's since learnt better. He'll still keep Dean upright while he throws up in the bathroom, and he'll still make him bacon when he's hungover, and he'll still tell grimy men with grabbing hands to fuck off when Dean's too pissed to do it himself. But Aidan will no longer stay up all night pressing his head to Dean's chest to check he's breathing.

He slips off the bed and tip toes from the room (pointless, really, since Dean sleeps like the dead) and goes into his own bedroom feeling almost relieved, as though the weight from Dean's problems has slid momentarily from his shoulders.

Flopping on to his bed he digs out his phone and sends a quick text to Richard. At first it simply reads _missing you already_. It's just a bit too twee, though. Aidan thinks about it for a moment, and carefully adds a winky face.

Then he goes downstairs and starts cleaning up the mess. Aidan isn't exactly sure when Dean started drinking, but even for a 24 hour binge he's managed to neck a lot. Like everyone, Aidan is a firm believer in the benefits of drinking away your sorrows every now and again, but this is ridiculous.

He puts all the cans in a bin liner and sweeps the mess of cigarettes off the table, tutting at the burn marks where Dean's given up on the ashtray entirely. Is this how Adam feels on a daily basis, despairing over the tragic immaturity of his housemates?

Of course, it's really Adam who's the reason Aidan is doing this. The last thing they need is him coming home and asking questions. Dean'll probably still be half drunk when he wakes up, and he'll blurt everything out about Graham again and somehow, Aidan isn't sure how but _somehow_ , everything about Richard will come out too. He can feel it.

He doesn't want that to happen. He loves Adam and Dean both, but he knows if they find out about Richard they'll ruin everything. Adam will go mental about it and throw a fit. Dean will... what will Dean do?

The thing is, Dean has never purposely hurt Aidan, but some of the most intense and intimate experiences of Aidan's life have been controlled or at least unwittingly wrecked by him in the past.

Perhaps it's because of how they met. Sleeping with Dean the first night they were introduced to each other means that Dean's always had a foot in the door of Aidan's life that none of his other friends do.

The first time he saw Dean it was in the winding queue at the Union bar, standing with a group of trendy overseas buddies. He was cool in a way Aidan could never hope to be: low-slung jeans and loose t-shirt and shark tooth necklace, hair two shades of blond and slicked with enough gel to fill an SU pint glass.

He was sexy but casually so, short and slight but glowing, so that everyone gravitated towards him. Aidan felt awkward and gangly in his presence, too tall, too dark, too rough around the edges.

His response to Dean's first smile was to quickly lower his eyes. And it wasn't even that Aidan fancied him, not really. Aidan liked and still likes people bigger than him, shyer than him, quieter and more thoughtful than him, to complement, perhaps, his restless mind.

But when Dean collected his drink and went and sat at the far end of the bar with his friends, Aidan couldn't stem the disappointment he felt about it, the niggling sense of failure. And when they bumped into each other in the gents and Dean told him he liked Aidan's shirt (Aidan's plain, black shirt), Aidan could only find it in himself to feel dumbly flattered.

And when they met up again outside the Union and shared the last two cigarettes in a creased Benson & Hedges packet and Dean turned and kissed him through a cloud of fresh smoke, Aidan just accepted it because, well, why not? It was his second night at university, and that was what university students did, wasn't it? Got off with people out of their league?

Dean still likes to fondly recall memories of shy, bumbling Fresher Week Aidan, but Aidan's one comfort in the face of this mockery is that on that one night they shared together – that one blurred, fragmentary night – Dean was actually pretty hopeless in bed.

They both were, really. Eighteen and over-eager and desperate for _carpe diem_ days, they were secretly just as lost as each other. Dean more so, perhaps. He was 12,000 miles from home, and though he oozed sex appeal with his natural blond highlights and tan, when it actually came down to it he didn't seem to have much of a clue what he was doing at all.

Aidan couldn't laugh; he'd been just as bad. He'd very nearly arrived at university a virgin. Fortunately a boy in his Bible Study group took care of that little predicament two weeks before the summer holidays ended.

And it _is_ fortunate, it really is. The thought that Dean O'Gorman could easily have taken Aidan's virginity is frankly terrifying.

-

Dean wakes up around nine, appears in the kitchen twenty minutes later with wet hair, dressed in sweat pants and a clean t-shirt, apparently much more sober than before.

He smiles softly and accepts Aidan's offer of dinner (a truckload of turkey dinosaurs and smiley face potatoes smothered in ketchup) and they eat in silence in the front room, watching a documentary about Ancient Egypt. Aidan doesn't know when to bring 'it' up, so he doesn't bring 'it' up at all.

“Did you know,” he pipes up through a mouthful of dinosaur, “that some people think the Egyptians were in contact with aliens, and that the pyramids were so fucking amazing that they must have been built by aliens, and there are even paintings of –”

“That's complete bollocks. Something being incredible doesn't mean it can't be man-made. It means no other culture at the time could rival the Egyptians. It's totally insulting to pass off their brilliance as the work of aliens because it's 'too good'.”

“Well, I'm just saying. Some people think that.”

“Do _you_ think that?”

“Dunno.”

Dean rolls his eyes, like he always does when Aidan doesn't know as much about something as he does.

“Here's a _real_ fact about the Egyptians,” he says, grinning meanly. “They used to kill mice and heat them up and shove them in your mouth as dental treatment. And they mashed up pigs' eyes and honey and poured it in people's ears to cure –”

“Fucking hell, Dean, I'm _eating_.”

Dean flops back against the couch, smile immediately wiped from his face. After a while he asks flatly, “So what did I say then?”

“What?”

“Well I obviously said something shocking before or you wouldn't be coming out with all this shit to avoid the issue –”

Aidan lets his fork drop to the plate with a clatter. “Look, I was merely explaining that some people _happen_ to believe that the pyramids were constructed by extraterrestrial lifeforms. Now, I'm sorry that I don't watch as much Horrible Histories as you, but –”

“If you want to ask about Graham, just _ask_.”

Aidan shuts up. Moments later he opens his mouth again. “Well. What happened?”

“Well, he fucked me?”

“See!” Aidan explodes a little bit at that. He even puts his plate on the table. That's a real sign of annoyance. Rejecting food in favour of confrontation. “See, this is why I don't ask, because I know you'll be like that!”

“What?”

“Like that!

“ _What_?”

“ _That_!”

“Well, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking about you being a smartarse all the time. ”

“You asked me a question and I answered it.”

“Yeah, but that's obviously not what I meant because you obviously already told me that part when you were very obviously fucking drunk!”

“Obviously.”

Aidan hits Dean on the thigh with his fork.

“Ow!” Dean rubs the injured spot way too hard for effect. “You know, Adam's a fucking wet blanket sometimes but at least he didn't physically attack me.”

Aidan stares at him. “Adam knows?”

“Of course he knows,” says Dean, rolling his eyes. “Why d'you think he's out? Stormed off in a good old tiff, didn't he? No doubt gone to drink loose leaf tea with his Thespian friends.”

“You told Adam before me?”

Aidan doesn't know why he's so bothered by this, only that he is and it feels unshakeable. Dean meets his eye, and even his expression seems to soften slightly.

“He got it out of me,” he says. “You know what he's like with his little voice and his fucking... face.”

That Aidan does, that Aidan does. It doesn't make it any better. Dean's his best friend, and Adam is... well Adam's his friend too, but... he's Adam. And Aidan's Aidan. So logically, Dean should tell him everything first. _Judas_.

“And anyway,” Dean goes on quietly, “it's not like you've been around much. You're barely here anymore. Always out with your other friends.”

Aidan winces a bit at that. His excuses over the past few weeks haven't been great, but the fact that Dean believes them without doubt almost hurts more.

On the other hand, Dean is kind of being a little brat right now.

“Don't be such a kid,” Aidan mutters.

“Me? You're the one crying because Adam found out before you –”

“Look, are you gonna tell me what happened or not? To be honest, Dean, I'm still kind of tired from hauling your drunken arse up the stairs, so if you're gonna tell me then just do it because otherwise I'm going to bed.”

Dean looks like he might argue again, but apparently in the end sees more benefit in confession. He draws his knees up to his chest, arms wrapped round his legs, and rests his chin on them.

“So I went to Graham's exhibit last week, yeah? It was amazing, Aid, honestly. I've never seen anything like... well anyway, of course I have to date the one person in the entire fucking city who can't keep his goddamned opinions to himself for five minutes. So Luke starts going on about all the usual stuff people who don't understand art go on about, like 'oh modern art is such a waste, even I could do that, it's the easiest load of fuckery in the world'.”

Aidan dislikes Luke, but he has to admit to having had similar thoughts when being dragged along to some of the exhibits Dean goes to. This probably isn't a helpful point to make.

“And he was being so _loud_ too. It was completely humiliating. We sort of ended up arguing a bit. Not loudly or anything, but he left. Said the only reason he came was because he was making _such_ an effort to understand the things I like, and that I don't make any effort to understand the things _he_ likes.” Dean turns to look at Aidan, an incredulous gleam in his eye. “He doesn't even like anything! All he does is count numbers and trim his facial hair. So anyway, he left and I was a bit, like, torn up about it. Not because I wanted him to _stay_ or anything. They were serving this really strong wine and no one was drinking it. So I just... I mean, it was free, you know?”

Aidan nods wisely. “I understand.”

“So I kind of got a bit drunk, and all the amazing photography and Luke and Graham and everything was just making me sort of emotional. I got a bit...” Dean clears his throat awkwardly. “Teary.”

“You cried.”

“I didn't say _cried_ , did I? I said teary.”

“I just assumed that meant you cried.”

“I got a tiny bit emotional and a tiny bit drunk, and I went and sat in the cloak room like a dick and Graham found me and he was just... he was being really nice, you know? He hugged me and stuff, and I probably got his shirt all wet but he didn't care. He just let me, and then he took me back to his place, right in the middle of his exhibit –”

“Wait wait wait, slow down.” Aidan shifts closer on the couch, unsure he's heard everything absolutely correctly. “He took you back to his place?”

“Yeah?”

“When you were drunk?”

“What's the problem?”

“Dean, he didn't... _take advantage_ of you, right?”

That earns him a shove and an eye roll.

“ _Aidan_. I'm not done yet. We didn't just go back and bang in his bed, if that's what you mean. He put me on his couch and I kind of fell asleep. It's embarrassing really, but I've sort of resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to forever humiliate myself around that man.”

Dean _almost_ manages a smile at this. Almost.

“I woke up about five hours later or something ridiculous like that. And I wasn't drunk anymore, and I wasn't sad anymore, and he was there, and he said...” And now Dean does give a tiny smile. “Said I looked nice when I was sleeping. Then I don't know how it happened, it just... did.” His voice is soft, thoughtful, in a distinctly un-Dean way. “Then he said it shouldn't have happened, and then it happened again. Just so you know, it was really good.”

“Oh well, as long as it was good.”

Aidan doesn't mean for it to sound as biting as it does, but Dean obviously picks up on it. He doesn't seem angry; he turns to Aidan, a tired, playful sort of smile on his face.

“You're wondering where his wife was, but you think it's too insensitive to ask,” he says.

Aidan's annoyed, because that's exactly what he was thinking.

Dean says flatly, “She's gone.” 

“She's dead?!”

Is it wrong that Aidan's immediate thought is an image of Dean and a shovel and a very deep hole in the back garden? 

“Not dead, you idiot. She's at her parents' house. Remember ages ago I told you, she'd gone to stay with them down south? Well, she's still there. Her and Graham... they're just not together anymore. But he doesn't seem that cut up about it.” 

Aidan nudges him gently with his foot. “Then what are you cut up about?”

Dean shrugs. “At the time it seemed really special, you know? Like that bit in Titanic in the car, but without the car? And he said all this _stuff_ to me and... and then afterwards, when he'd got dressed, he just said... _thanks_. Thanks, like I was doing him a favour.”

Aidan can _feel_ his own face softening. He leans forward so his face is close to Dean's, and his mouth moves without actually finding any useful words.

“I'm sorry, mate.”

“I mean, that's what they say to whores, isn't it?”

“What?”

“You know, thanking them. 'Thanks for helping me work off that steam in my wife's absence, see you next week if you're still around'? That sort of thing.”

“Christ, Dean, you can't honestly be saying –”

“It's true though, isn't it? I mean, that's all I'm good for.”

“That is so much bollocks!” says Aidan, and it's true but it's also wildly uncomfortable, and suddenly the living room feels like it's turning into the set of a night time soap. Dean's voice should not be cracking on confessions about his sex life. Dean's voice should not be cracking at all. Dean doesn't get upset about things. It's Dean. It's _Dean_.

“It's not bollocks, it's true. I mean there I am, thinking for once – for _once –_ somebody I actually like and actually admire cares about me, and then he turns around and says thanks, Dean, now you can go home and cry over your stupid fuck of a boyfriend in peace. And then there's Luke himself. Do you honestly think he's with me because he likes me? We don't have anything in common! And the only reason you put in a good word for me is so he would sleep with me, not so that he'd date me.”

“Dean, I didn't –”

“Luke told me, Aidan. He told me it was you. Of course it was you. He'd never have approached me in that club otherwise. He'd never have talked to me if he hadn't known I was willing to sleep with him.”

“I didn't tell him you wanted to sleep with him!”

“Aidan, we were in a bar called The Cockpit. I don't think you needed to _say_ it. Besides, it's always the same. No one ever just likes me for me. I've never had a proper boyfriend.”

“Maybe you're just not looking in the right places? I mean, gay bars and stuff aren't exactly, you know, respectable.”

That makes Dean smile. “I fell in love with my tutor. You don't get a much more respectable environment than education.”

“You're in love with him?”

“I don't think I've ever felt this much agony so yeah, I must be in love with him.” The smile blossoms. “Unfortunate, right?”

Aidan isn't quite sure what to make of this. Dean's always seemed like such a free spirit, something to do with that New Zealand blood perhaps. He doesn't seem the type to be weighed by things as mundane as simple love. He's colour and sunshine and booze and fantastic sex. To apply something so unremarkable as love to Dean seems terrifying, like they're all growing up too fast.

One more blink and Dean might be married. Now there's a scary thought.

“Dean,” Aidan says slowly, “not to sound, like, proper gay or anything, but I think it would be really easy to fall in love with you.”

“You didn't.”

Aidan's heart stops for just a moment.

“Hm?”

Dean licks his lips. “You didn't, and you've had _ages_.”

“What... do you mean?”

Aidan doesn't like this. Already his turkey dinosaurs and smiley face potatoes are beginning to swill uncomfortably in his stomach.

“You're a case in point. The only reason we're friends, Aidan, is because we fucked. Think about that, okay? We slept together, and then we lived in a house together, and even that isn't enough to make you like me.”

“That's completely different!”

“Why?”

“Because... because you're Dean!”

“Yeah, exactly. I'm Dean. And who takes Dean seriously?”

“Well, do you _want_ me to like you?”

“No, not really. I'm just saying...”

Aidan doesn't catch the next part of Dean's sentence, because he's too busy melting with relief. For a minute there he thought something really, really horrible was about to come out. Fuck, that was scary. His whole life flashed before his eyes. Lots of bad weather and Catholicism and Adam sighing. Awful stuff.

“The point is, I'm going to be alone forever,” says Dean, once Aidan finds it in himself to start listening again. “I'll be alone in my twenties, and I'll be alone in my thirties, and eventually I'll become one of those old queens whose only form of sexual gratification is asking younger, better looking male models to come into my studio so I can paint them naked. And no one will even buy the paintings, because no one wants work off an old, single loser with no friends.”

“Bit dramatic, don't you think?”

“I want Graham to fall in love with me, Aidan.”

Aidan has no answer to that, so he shifts closer and puts an arm around Dean and rubs his shoulder like good friends do. Dean turns to him, takes Aidan's face in his hands and kisses him full on the mouth.

“Anything?” Dean asks softly when they break apart.

They sit there for a few moments, both smiling tiny smiles that aren't really smiles, until Aidan finally mutters, “Fuck you, O'Gorman. I'm not gonna be your fall back.”

“It was worth a try,” says Dean, bumping their foreheads gently. In an ideal world, Aidan would be surprised. 


	12. Chapter 12

Aidan and Richard sit together on a huge bed of blankets. It's seven o'clock in the evening, and Aidan's eating masses of bread and expensive Marks & Spencer jam, wearing nothing but his boxers.

“Sorry,” he says through a mouthful, licking sticky fingers and balancing his bread carefully at the same time. “I'm getting jam all over your covers.”

Richard chuckles softly. “That's alright, I can wash them.”

“My mum says soaking stuff in vinegar preserves the integrity of the fabric.”

“Thanks, Aidan, I'll remember that.”

“She swears by vinegar and kosher salt. Oh, and toothpaste. I'm not so sure on that last one, though. I tried it on red wine and it just made it smell minty. Anyway, I rang her up and she said it only works with Colgate. Colgate! Like I can afford Colgate. Are you eating that?”

Richard glances down to where his last hunk of French bread remains untouched and shakes his head. Aidan promptly snatches it up.

“You're weird. I'm always _starving_ after sex.”

“I could make you something proper if you like.”

Admittedly, the idea of having Richard cook for him is incredibly tempting, but what's more appealing is the sight of Richard wrapped up in the thin coverlet with messy hair and sweat-slicked skin, clothes in a heap on the floor. Aidan's quite proud of the display, really. He has done this. This is what he's achieved.

“This is fine,” he says, smothering the last piece of bread with jam to prove his point. “I like this.”

He does, too. He doesn't remember the last time he had a sandwich that wasn't filled with something obscenely fried. At this point, even raspberry jam tastes like fresh fruit.

“So, sir,” he goes on, still chewing, “when do you want me gone?”

“You'd be more than welcome to stay the night,” Richard tells him, sweeping a hand out to run his fingers gently over Aidan's midriff. “However, I _think_ I heard something about an assignment for an English tutorial tomorrow. Know anything about that?”

Aidan scoffs, leaning lazily on his elbow. “Yeah. I've got this really cruel tutor who keeps setting me God-awful essays every week.”

“Your tutor does not set you essays. Your tutor passes on information from the module coordinator pertaining to your essays, and then stays up till the early hours marking them.”

“Which is a complete waste of time really,” Aidan says, tossing his last bit of bread on to the night stand, crawling over to where Richard's lying and deftly straddling him, “because he _could_ be staying up till the early hours with his star pupil.”

“Your tutor has spent a _lot_ of time with his star pupil recently.”

Aidan dips down low and presses a soft kiss to Richard's lips. “And has my tutor enjoyed every minute of it?”

“He has – immensely – but he's also beginning to think it's reflecting in his star pupil's academic work.”

“The cheek of it!” Aidan sits up again, hands splayed on Richard's chest but face a picture of indignation. “My work's as stellar as always. If Byron could balance intense and steamy love affairs with adventures in academia, so can I.”

“Yes,” Richard agrees, “I have to admit you're currently looking particularly Byronic, Mr Turner.”

Aidan lets his face drop into a brooding pout accordingly, and Richard laughs. That seems to be Aidan's main ambition these days, making Richard laugh. It's a deeply sweet sound, sort of how Aidan imagines Tom Waits might laugh if he were a bit more cheerful.

“Give us a break on the assignment this week, yeah?” he says, chancing a wink. “Then I can stay the night.”

That makes Richard laugh again. “Oh, no no no, that is _not_ the direction this is heading in. You're not about to start getting special treatment from me in class.”

“Oh God, don't be such a bore.”

“I mean it! You're doing well enough without any extra nudges from me.”

“Yeah exactly, so no one'll notice if you jot me down another first this week.”

“A first! You should be so lucky.”

“ _Richard_.”

“ _Aidan_.”

Somehow Richard manages to mimic his voice perfectly, and Aidan blinks in surprise, then laughs.

“You're in a very spritely mood tonight,” he observes, drumming his fingers lightly up Richard's bare chest, enjoying the the trail of goose flesh which prickles up in their wake. “I might hazard a guess as to why.”

It's bold, perhaps, and wildly self-indulgent, but Richard doesn't seem to mind when Aidan acts like a cocky little so and so. He rolls his hips slowly against Richard's, glorying in the way their lower bodies meet through the ruffled layers of cotton sheets, and Richard groans.

“God, Aidan, slow it down. I don't quite have the stamina of a twenty-year-old.”

“You make yourself sound old.”

“Yes, well. It's somewhat difficult to feel young with you on top of me like this.” In a rather swift motion that catches even Aidan off guard Richard reaches up a hand to pull him down, kissing him briefly and breaking from it to speak roughly against Aidan's lips. “Do you have any idea how disgustingly gorgeous you are?”

Aidan laughs in delight. He's not sure which Richard he likes more: shy, blind-mouse Richard, walking haphazrdly into bits of furniture as he tries desperately to pretend he isn't all flustered and pink? Or magnificent Richard, lying prone in bed and murmuring excellent things against Aidan's mouth?

They both have their merits, true. Right now Aidan's pretty sure he knows which one he prefers. Still, it's a shame that even magnificent Richard won't let him get away with not doing a few measly essay questions for one week. Aidan pulls back from a second kiss and stretches languidly.

“I'll go then,” he sighs, making as though to roll off Richard and on to the bed again.

Richard grasps his hips, holding him in place. “Don't look at me like that.”

“Not looking at you like anything.”

“You're looking at me with those eyes. Trying to make me feel guilty.”

Aidan puts a hand either side of Richard's head, meeting his gaze directly. “Is it working?”

“Not in the slightest.”

They both smile, and this time when Aidan goes to climb off, Richard lets him. He flops on to the other side of the bed and looks across at Richard, noting that he's still smiling as he stares up at the ceiling. As Aidan watches, the smile fades, and Richard turns to him, expression soft.

“Anyway,” he says gently, brushing a stray curl out of Aidan's eyes, “just think. A few more weeks to go and then you'll never have to turn in a second-year assignment ever again.”

“Which means a few more weeks to go and I'll be doing fucking exams. And then as a reward I'll be back in _Dublin_. The rapture!”

“You're not looking forward to going home?”

“Three months of sleeping in the box room with a frantic Catholic woman asking if I've prayed to God for a girlfriend yet. Would you fancy it?”

“Don't you... don't you get on with them? Your parents?” Richard asks, and he's got his best tentative student advisor you-can-trust-me-honest voice going on, and that coupled with the fact they've just had phenomenal sex makes Aidan laugh suddenly.

“Yeah, man, they're alright. I love them both to bits, we just don't always see eye to eye. And I know what you're thinking, but it's not just the gay thing. It's more the fact that they're both convinced I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. They think I'm gonna wind up homeless on the streets of Dublin, singing for change. Dad's particularly concerned. The strings on my guitar've been snapped since I was eight.”

He trails off into another laugh, but Richard fixes him with another of those concerned _teacher_ gazes.

“Seriously, though, it's fine,” says Aidan. “They just watch too much Channel 5.”

“You're two-thirds of your way through a degree at a good university,” Richard says uncertainly. “You're hardly the next Woody Guthrie.”

“Ah, but Richard, that degree is packed with words and poetry, and no poem's worth a dime unless it's a psalm.”

“That old gem.”

“Mm, _that_ old gem.” Aidan rolls on to his stomach, the sheets warm against his bare skin, and begins playing with the soft edges of the pillows. He loves these pillows. Everything on Richard's bed feels expensive. “I'm no good at maths and stuff like they are. They're both accountants. My mum took me to a doctor about it when I was a kid. She thought there was something wrong with me.”

“I'm pretty hopeless at maths, too. Frightfully useless subject.”

“Did you always want to lecture?”

“No one ever wants to lecture, Aidan.”

“What, then? Write?”

“I told you, I don't write. No more than I have to, anyway. I mean, I've poured out a few opinions on poems for some pretty boring journals I'm sure you have absolutely no intention of reading.”

“I might.”

Richard hums, as though he isn't convinced, and lightly drops a hand to the top of Aidan's head, playing with the curls there.

“So what then?” Aidan presses. It's one of those moments – and they usually come in these slow and lazy, timeless times – where he suddenly wants to know everything about Richard. “What did you want to be?”

Richard exhales and turns to look at the ceiling again, fingers still moving absently.

“Nothing,” he says after a long while. “I didn't want to be anything. I didn't want a job. I wanted a boat, and I wanted my books, and that was all. Jobs, careers, they always seemed like such a nuisance when I was younger. Getting in the way when I was trying to read. It was like constantly batting a fly away from a page. But I think I've always been one of those people who fancies himself a terrible Romantic and is, in fact, a horribly dull realist. I knew I wanted to know everything there was to know about English literature, and at the same time I knew I needed a job. So I kept on at university, spent the 'best years' of my life at university, eventually got a job at a university, ended up living right in the heart of a university town, and now here I am, lying in bed with a university student.”

“Funny how things turn out, isn't it?”

“Never how you expect them to, that's for sure. What do you want to do?” 

“What, right now?”

Richard rolls his eyes, batting his hand gently against Aidan's head before returning to his gentle stroking. It's nice. Careful, like a feather.

“With your life,” he clarifies.

“Marry rich and die young,” Aidan says easily. “Like James Dean. But something less gruesome than a car crash.”

“Not too young, I hope.”

“Well, if I'm aiming for Forever 27 status I need to get a move on with my bucket list. I've got loads of stuff to get through. Ticked off 'sleep with a teacher' though, so cheers for that one, Rich.”

Richard gives him a playful little shove.

“What else is on this list of yours, then?” he asks. “Swim with dolphins? Walk the Great Wall of China?”

“Don't be ridiculous, what's the point in doing any of that junk? Dean and I wanna party in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, that's one.”

“Cultured, I like it.”

“Eat that Japanese fish that can sometimes kill you. Try bull riding. Have a threeway.”

Richard almost chokes on air.

“I don't think Dean's game for it at the moment,” Aidan goes on casually, “but Adam might be. What do you think?”

“I think you're impossible.”

“Not much of a sharer, eh?”

“Not much,” says Richard, and he cements his point with a long kiss that leaves Aidan pretty breathless.

“I should go, get out of your hair,” Aidan eventually mumbles against his lips.

“Mm, I do want those essay questions in tomorrow.”

But their lips meet again, inevitably, and it's almost another hour before they even manage to haul themselves out of the bed.

 

 

 

Dean and Adam are eating Chinese food and watching Sleepless in Seattle when Aidan gets home.

“You're both massive gays,” he announces, dropping his keys on the table. “Is there any of that left for me?”

“Seafood noodles in the kitchen,” Adam tells him. “Couple of spring rolls left in the bag, too. We weren't sure if you were coming back. Dean was getting ready to eat yours.”

“Sorry, Deano,” says Aidan when he comes back into the living room with the plastic box, nudging Adam with his foot to get him to budge up on the couch. “I'm starving.”

No one else says anything. It's only now that the air in the room registers to Aidan as being thick with tension. He does his best to break it.

“This junk been on long?” he asks around a mouthful of shrimp. “Planet Ant's on at nine.”

Dean grabs the remote and immediately switches over to BBC4, much to the irritation of Adam.

“Dean! Meg Ryan!”

Dean looks at him. “Ants,” he says calmly.

Poor Adam. He's always outnumbered. Hey, that's a great idea for his birthday though: a whopping great  _stack_ of Meg Ryan movies. Aidan makes a mental note of it and shoves a mass of noodles into his mouth, just as two ants begin heatedly maiming one another.

Conversationally, it's clear none of them have much of substance to offer. Ever since the 'thing' (Aidan hasn't dubbed it as being anything specific yet, and so mentally refers to it as either the 'thing' or 'Dean's drunken thing') the atmosphere in the house hasn't been quite right, like someone's tied a rope round the air and pulled.

It's not like Adam can do anything about it, and it's not in Dean's nature to care what most people think about him, but it's uncomfortable for Aidan who has to tip toe around his own home. He's grown fearful of even mentioning anything remotely related to the little conundrum. Every time Graham Norton comes on TV he hastily switches the channel for fear of setting off some kind of alarm.

“I'm going home this weekend,” Adam says later when they're washing up, and Aidan immediately thinks it's because of the 'thing'.

He looks up from his tea towel. “Is it because of the...?”

“What? No, don't be stupid.” Adam glances over his shoulder through into the lounge. Dean is lying on the couch forlornly crumbling prawn crackers. “I want to feel sorry for him but it's difficult.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Dean mutters from the next room. “Everyone hears everything in this house.”

Aidan sees the ghost of genuine bother behind Adam's mask of perpetual annoyance. He wants to catch his eye again, to tell him through his expression, if he can't through words, that he's sorry, Adam, really he is, that they can't see eye to eye on this.

He wants to be on Adam's side. He wants to disapprove, like Adam does, of Dean being so blatantly in the wrong. But there's a fierce ball of protectiveness that wells up tight inside Aidan whenever he looks at Dean, because Dean can be stupid but he's also small and compact like a South Pacific bunny, and maybe he shouldn't have cheated on his boyfriend, and maybe he shouldn't have done that with his tutor, but Aidan can't find it in himself to feel as strongly about it as Adam so evidently does.

“Anyway, I'm heading off tomorrow evening,” says Adam, when it's clear Aidan isn't going to speak any time soon. “British Gas are coming to read the meter on Saturday and it's grey bin day too, so remember to put the rubbish out, won't you? And lock the back door when you go to bed! I'm sick of coming down in the morning and finding it open, anyone could just walk in. _Have_ just walked in, in the past.”

“That man was perfectly docile, he didn't do any harm.”

“And make sure Dean doesn't do anything totally stupid,” Adam goes on, as though he hasn't heard. “And yes, I know you can hear me, Dean, but that's because I want you to!”

“For your information,” Dean calls back, and they can still hear the snap of him determinedly mutilating crackers, “I'm not going to be here this weekend either.”

At that, both Aidan and Adam traipse into the lounge and look down at him. It is a pitiful sight. Aidan offers Dean the tea towel to wipe his fingers on.

“Where are you going?” Adam asks suspiciously.

“Away.”

“Away where?”

Dean won't say where, but when Adam's gone back upstairs Aidan sits down on the couch and gets the whole story. He doesn't know why Dean thinks it's more beneficial to tell him than Adam. Perhaps because they both expect Adam to be disappointed. Honestly, he usually is.

“Luke's taking me to an art show in Manchester, and we're staying over. He said he's got a 'really nice hotel' booked, which probably means, like, Premier Inn or something.” Dean looks up and catches Aidan's gaze. “That's really mean of me, isn't it?”

“Little bit.”

“It's his way of apologizing for being such a massive dick the other day at the exhibit.”

“Right. Great.”

Aidan nods, looking down at his knees. Thing is, Luke _is_ a massive dick, but Dean cheated on him two and a half times. What, exactly, is there even left for Aidan to say?

He eventually decides on: “Isn't that a little... weird?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, after everything that's happened...”

“Well, maybe. But it's not like Luke knows. You don't think I should tell him, do you?”

“I don't know, Dean! Months ago you were gonna break up with him.”

“I know, I know. It's just hard...”

_Because leaving him would mean being single – again – and being single doesn't even bear thinking about, does it, Deano?_

Aidan _thinks_ that, but naturally does not _say_ that. He doesn't want Dean's hand to collide with his face. Instead he says, “Yeah, I know,” even though he doesn't know at all.

“Anyway, I can't not go now,” says Dean. “I've already sold my ticket to this weekend's Arts ball.”

“You were gonna go to the Arts ball?”

“Yeah, I bought the ticket ages ago, back before I got with Graham. Thought I could woo him in a tux. Bit useless now, huh? Hey, you didn't want it, did you?”

“Fuck, no. I hate dances.”

“Yeah, I thought so. Adam's Drama one's coming up in a couple of weeks. He asked if we wanted to go. I told him you'd probably rather gnaw your own face off.”

“Gnaw it off in a heartbeat. What about you, don't you want to go?”

“Well, I'm not gonna go if you're not, am I?” Dean hoists himself up off the couch and claps Aidan on the shoulder. “No worries. We can just stay in that night and eat. Anyway, Adam's birthday's a week after it. That'll be good, right? I mean, I know he sort of can't stand the sight of me right now, but a celebration's a celebration.”

“You know he isn't angry at you. He's just concerned.”

“Yeah well, he's always concerned about something, I guess. He'd starve if he didn't have worry to feed off. You got him a present yet?”

“Nah, you?”

“No. I was gonna paint him something, but this 'Joy' project's taking up all my time. Besides, I don't know if I can get away with giving him art a second year running. Probably best to just go out and buy him something shiny.”

“We could buy him something together?”

“Like a married couple? Sure. Have a think about it. I'm going to bed now. Don't forget to lock the back door before you go up. Don't want that docile man coming in again.”

Dean goes upstairs, and Aidan sits in the quiet for a while with the TV off. He's still got that assignment to do, but it can wait. It's not like Aidan to do anything in good time, and besides, right now it feels more important that he have one of those quiet moments of reflection Adam's always recommending. He's been so busy lately, it feels like he's forgotten to give himself time to comprehend everything that's happened.

Aidan's not sure how it came to this. Everything, that is. He feels as though he should be happy, singing on the tops of hills, but there's something dull and terribly hazy resting in his gut, and he can't figure out why.

Because Richard is gorgeous and everything good, but the more Adam despairs of their household, and the more Dean messes up, the more this whole thing feels transient.

 

 

 

The next morning he stumbles out of bed around noon to find the house empty. He showers and wanders into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal, and by the time that's all done he has to set out for his tutorial. It's a warm, rainy day. He pulls his hood up and gets the bus and arrives nearly fifteen minutes late due to traffic. There's something about English people and bad weather. It's like they can't handle it, like they think it'll melt the very metal from their cars.

So he's late, and he's wet, and he has to rush up the flights of winding stairs, bag bouncing, and when he bursts through the door, soaked and panting, Richard's wearing soft pale blue and a concentrated frown. At first Aidan thinks he's angry at him for being so late, but then he realises Richard isn't even looking at him, is in fact staring resolutely at the papers in front of him while Misandrist American Girl and George the North London Bee engage in a heated rap battle over metaphor in Marlowe.

If Aidan was expecting a repeat of last night's frank affection, he doesn't get it. He threads his way through the chairs to get to his seat, the empty one to the left of Richard. He expects to feel a happy pang when he sits down, but when Richard glances up at him his face is so weary that Aidan doesn't feel any tumult of emotion, only a dull throb of something almost like grief.

The very worst floods him: _someone knows_.

The last forty minutes creep by, and when it's over Aidan dawdles and Richard doesn't tell him not to. When the others have gone, Aidan sits back down.

“Someone's found out, haven't they?” he says quietly.

“What do you mean?”

Aidan motions between them, head down. “About us?”

“No! God, no. What ever made you think that?”

Nerves settling, Aidan manages a smile. “You just seemed a bit down, is all.”

“You needn't have thought the worst.”

This does nothing to quell the roiling waves in Aidan's stomach though, because Richard still looks shifty. Aidan reaches out carefully, takes hold of Richard's hand and fixes him with a look he hopes invites some kind of explanation.

Richard sighs and sits down opposite him. He rubs his thumb over Aidan's hand and back again. Then again, and again, and long moments pass before he actually speaks.

“There is something,” he says quietly. “I couldn't have told you earlier. I only found out this morning.”

“Go on...”

“I had a meeting with the Pro Dean. It was scheduled for Monday, but he's going away to a conference so it was put forward, and...” Richard pauses for a long time. Too long. “The thing is, Aidan, I've been offered a job.”

“Shame you already have one!” says Aidan, far more cheerfully than is appropriate.

“It's in London.”

Aidan doesn't react in any outward way, but his insides freeze. It's like cold hands have taken hold of his guts and _pulled_. The hand that isn't holding Richard's presses over his ribcage like he's trying to physically press the icy fingers back and away. Some of the discomfort must show on his face because Richard leans forward, quiet but urgent, and asks him, “What do you think?”

His grip tightens on Aidan's hand. Aidan tries to squeeze back, but it's like his own fingers aren't screwed on right. He's hit with a yearning – of considerable proportions – to beg Richard to stay.

Is he too far gone for begging yet? Is he willing to sink so low so soon?

He swallows, hard, like there's something in his throat.

“You're not gonna go though, are you?”

Richard sighs. “I found out about it less than five hours ago. I haven't got a clue what I'm going to do about it, Aidan. I haven't even spoken to the Principal about it. You're the first one I've told.”

“Which is weird,” Aidan mumbles, “because I have a feeling my opinion isn't going to make much difference.”

Richard does not deny this. “It's a very, very good job.”

“Lecturing?”

“Yes, of course. But at a...”

“Better university,” Aidan finishes for him, and he doesn't mean for it to sound as stony as it does.

“It's only temporary. Just an academic year, until they find a permanent replacement.”

“Which could be you.”

Richard nods, not meeting Aidan's gaze. “Which could be me. I'm not saying I'm taking it. I'm saying it's a possibility, and I wanted you to be aware of that –”

“All that stuff you said!” Aidan interrupts, tugging his hand from Richard's. “About jobs being a nuisance, and – and not caring about money –”

“I didn't say I didn't _care_ about it. Christ, Aidan, I'm a grown man, I have to consider all my options fully, I have to make responsible choices.”

“Responsible! You're fucking a _student_!”

“Would you keep your voice down?” Richard hisses. “For God's sake, I thought you'd be a little more mature about this.”

“Oh, what, are you disappointed in me? Gonna mark me down? D'you know what, do what you want.”

He hauls his bag up from the floor and fixes Richard with a finely-honed scowl, the one Dean calls 'mildly intimidating', the one Adam calls 'terrifying'. He never realises he's doing it, until the harsh crease in his brow actually begins to hurt.

“I can't believe you're angry at me for this,” says Richard. “You're being incredibly selfish.”

And suddenly he's Dr Armitage again, and Aidan's never felt smaller in his life.

He means to defend himself properly, but what comes out is, “Well I really like you!” in a voice so loud it leaves a buzzing silence in its wake.

He ignores the instinct which tells him to stay and hear Richard's response. He leaves because he feels stupid, because he knows he's being over-dramatic, because he knows he's being selfish. But God, it's been a long week, and something inside him is telling him this isn't _fair_.

Outside the room he glances back at the door. The window above the stairwell is fitted with blue and red stained glass, and the hot rain dries against it, and this blinding shot of purple sun makes Aidan squint. All the same, he feels lost. Standing here, it's a bit like a light's gone out.


	13. Chapter 13

Adam's packed and on the train by six, so Dean makes them dinner (buttered toast) and provides the evening's entertainment (two rounds of Black Ops and a brief game of Animal Sounds that ends when Dean can't guess Aidan's half-hearted velociraptor).

“I'm going upstairs for a bit,” Aidan announces after a while. “I need a nap.”

What he actually needs is some space for thought. He's drained enough as it is without Dean's perpetually morose demeanour adding to the effect. Maybe that's not fair, but Aidan's already feeling pretty sorry for himself as it is.

Upstairs, he flips through his English readings for next week, but there's no point trying to concentrate on something which is a) horribly boring; and b) saturated with the memory of Richard.

He pushes himself away from his desk and actually does lie down on the bed, contemplating a nice, short nap. Or a nice, long nap. Either would be fine and welcomed right now.

As he lies there, staring up at the smeary gold stain on the ceiling where Russell managed to get his glow in the dark birthpod alien stuck a while ago, he tentatively addresses the issues he's been busy creating a mental block against since two o'clock this afternoon. Namely, that Richard might actually be leaving and there's essentially zero Aidan can do about it.

He realises that the happy bubble he's been building since that night he walked Richard back to Hunter's Gate for the first time is clouding. It doesn't make his feelings for Richard any less intense – in fact, it might have increased them – but it's certainly making Aidan see things differently, trying to figure out whether or not his upset is actually justified.

A job in London! He should be singing Richard's praises, the smart, charming, sensible, good-looking fucker. Everyone knows that universities in London, mostly without exception, are fantastically good. Aidan wonders which one it is. UCL? King's? Doesn't really matter. London is London, and London's at the other end of the country.

Forcing the lonely thoughts into some hopefully unearthable crevice of his mind, he starts to slip into sleep. Downstairs Dean is painting again, working on the Joy project, and that and the lack of Adam means the house is completely still, and the heat of his bedroom, and Aidan's own steady breathing, is what begins lulling him.

He'd like to stay here all week. He's never felt like this before, and he's pretty sure the sickening mixture of pleasure at what he's had with Richard so far, and the inability to breathe when considering the future, is what everyone goes on about. He's got it bad, he knows, and it's wonderful but also scary and painful and terribly, terribly exhausting.

It's his own fault, he supposes. He's made himself feel like this for going out of his way to sleep with Richard. If he hadn't done that, he could have kept his emotions in check. Could have said congratulations and it was nice to know you and everything, but if you've gotta go, Rich, you've gotta go.

God, he's an idiot. He wishes he could say this is the first time he's been so rash, but honestly, the amount of times Aidan has said _well, it seemed like a good idea at the time_ is getting a bit beyond ridiculous.

Eventually he falls into fitful sleep, and the last thought in his conscious mind is that the simple fact of the matter is he really likes Richard. A lot. That's the problem.

 

 

 

He wakes with the pattern of the creased pillowcase imprinted on one side of his face and his phone going mental on the night stand. It feels like he's been asleep for days. One glance at the bedside clock tells him he's only been gone half an hour or so. The sleep was so light it's left him feeling worse than before, and the phone blaring at him isn't helping.

It's a text from Richard, which isn't especially surprising. It was only a matter of time before he apologised.

Apologised for what?

Once again, Aidan is reminded how much of a petulant prick he can be, and with a snuffled, sleepy sigh he grapples for the phone and peers at the text.

It says: _how willing would you be to meet me at the blue bell?_  and Aidan rolls his eyes because only Richard would begin texts with “how willing would you be”.

He knows he doesn't want to sulk, that he has little means of justifying his sulking, and after only a brief pause for thought Aidan texts back _what time?_

Immediately, Richard replies with _now?_

“I'm going out for a bit,” Aidan announces after he's pulled on a jacket and some shoes and traipsed downstairs.

Dean looks up from his painting. He's got a smear of orange on his nose.

“Okay,” he says, and he looks like he might be on the verge of asking where but in the end he doesn't. “Should I wait up?”

Since Aidan doesn't know how long this appointment is going to last, he says, “No, I don't know when I'll be back. You've got orange on your nose, by the way.”

The Blue Bell isn't far, but since Richard said 'now' Aidan gets the bus there, and by the time he arrives Happy Hour is in full swing. He has to thread through the usual crowd, tetchy and uncharacteristically nervous, to get to the garden where Richard, thank God, is already waiting for him.

Unexpectedly, the first thing they do is embrace. Aidan isn't sure who initiates it, but one minute he's standing at Richard's table feeling awkward and out of place and the next they're wrapping firm arms around each other like old friends.

“Sit down?” Richard tentatively suggests.

Aidan does, and for a moment they're both silent. Aidan's eyes are restless, glancing first at the dull fairy lights dotting the top of the fence, then travelling to the full ashtray on the table, then finally landing on Richard, who licks his lips but says nothing.

Without planning to, Aidan blurts out, “I'm sorry.”

Richard, bless him, is polite enough to look confused. “What for?”

“You know what for. For being a horror to you. For not being happy about the job. It's an amazing opportunity, Rich, and I'm really pleased for you. Honestly.”

Richard shakes his head. “I'm the one who should be apologising. I shouldn't have sprung it on you like that, not when I hadn't really given myself much time to think about it either. I just... I don't know, panicked? Wanted to get it over with?” He sighs, heavily, and it's clear he has no great speech prepared. “I had no idea how you'd react. None at all.”

That makes Aidan feel even worse. The idea that Richard had been working himself up to tell him, worrying about Aidan's reaction, is bad enough, but for Aidan to then act out what was presumably Richard's worst case scenario is a pretty numbing, not to mention kind of humiliating, fact to realise.

“It just seems to have come at a strange time, that's all,” Aidan mumbles. “Like someone's trying to stop us.”

“Actually...” Richard trails off for a moment, looking awkward. Now it's his turn to examine the dying fairy lights, not meeting Aidan's eye. “Actually, I've known about the job for some time. I never thought it would be offered to me, of course, but I knew it was available. It's just... well, they offered me a transfer two years ago and I ended up staying here. Ever since then I just assumed I'd sort of missed my chance with them.”

“And now you want to take it, right?”

“I don't know, Aidan. There's lots to consider.”

“Like what?”

“Well, you know. Moving and everything. They'd provide me with a flat but it's still a lot more expensive to live in London. Then there's my salary, the syllabus... of course, in London I'd be closer to my family...”

Aidan thinks back to that photo in the office, Richard's happy nephew and that hideous fish between them, and feels in his stomach the sudden, ugly twist which comes with the realisation that you're losing something.

“And then there's you,” Richard says finally.

“Do I make that much difference?”

“Come on, Aidan, don't ask stupid questions.”

“I just mean...” Aidan sniffs, shrugs, not really sure what he means. “It's your job, you know, your career. You're an adult, you've got to make responsible decisions, and I can't... I don't wanna be the one to mess it up for you.”

He's not sure if that's the truth. He'd mess it up royally if it meant for certain that Richard could stay. Aidan knows all the right things to _say_ , and he knows all the moral implications, and he knows that what he's saying now is absolutely true – that this is something as significant as Richard's career, and this is a time for smart decisions – but Aidan can't force himself to feel okay about it. Can't force himself to believe what he's spouting.

“It is a very good job,” Richard says quietly, and that's it, Aidan's sure that's an answer right there. “If I stayed, we'd just carry on as we are doing. But if I went, I'd still... Aidan, I'd still want things to be the same. You know that, don't you?”

“M'not sure I understand.”

“Leaving here wouldn't mean leaving _you_.”

Then realisation hits. That for Richard this more than just a thrill to keep their minds occupied, to keep work interesting. This is a proper relationship, or it _could_ be, and Aidan knows he should feel happy about it but he doesn't. Not straight away.

“But I'd never see you!”

“I know, but... no, you're right.” Richard straightens up, nodding, like it's all suddenly, finally, come together in his mind. “You're right, I'm not being fair.”

“Long distance is better than nothing, though,” Aidan says, too quickly and too desperately.

“Aidan, you're young, much younger than me. And very good looking and very lovely and you've got a lot of other important things you should be focusing on and you shouldn't be expected to wait for me –”

“I don't care! I don't care that you're older than me or that we can't be open about things, because everyone else is miserable right now and I feel sick with it unless you're around because you're – because you're the best person I know, I think. I've never been with someone so nice and, like, good before, and I want you to have a good job, I want you to have a job you love, and if moving away means being happy then I want you to move away, but I – I don't want you to forget about me. You know, I couldn't stand that.”

Richard closes his eyes for a moment. “I wouldn't,” he says.

Aidan splutters out, “Well, good!” and then he doesn't know what else to say so he tugs Richard forward and kisses him clumsily, and he's still not sure if he's doing it because he wants Richard to stay so he won't forget about him, or because he wants him to go and not forget about him.

Either way, memory is key: _don't forget about me, I couldn't stand that_. That would be agony.

Aidan raises a hand to grip Richard's jaw as they kiss and slowly, almost tentatively, as if being brought back to consciousness, Richard puts his arms around Aidan and holds him tight.

A low, confused noise breaks them apart. They both swivel at the same time to stare at the back door to the pub, where three burly construction workers, still in their hi-vis jackets and clutching pints of lager, are looking at them with arched, furry eyebrows.

That deep and telling blush Aidan loves floods Richard's cheeks, and Aidan isn't sure whether to laugh or grab Richard's hand and make a run for it. His mind is quickly made up for him.

“Right,” one of the men says slowly in a deep, broad Lancashire accent, “I'm not saying you _have_ to leave, lads, but I really do think it would be in your _best interests_.”

Aidan isn't sure, but he thinks one of the other men might be cracking his knuckles. He grabs Richard's arm and, as calmly and as quickly as possible, they leave.

 

 

 

“Christ, Aidan!” Richard breathes once they're safe in the warm confines of his car. “We have _got_ to be more careful.”

Like he's been holding it in, Aidan gives a wild bark of laughter and feels helplessly fond of him.

“Please lighten up,” he says, leaning across the gear stick to press his hand to Richard's arm.

“Did you see their faces? They looked like they wanted to do more with those pint glasses than just drink out of them. In fact...” Richard breaks off to start up the engine. “Let's just get out of here. I don't want them to come and key my car.”

“No one is gonna key your car, we're in rural England.”

“Social challenges aren't just limited to urban areas, Aidan! Bureaucracy ties rural police officers to their desks! Do you have any idea how much of an effect that has on the crime rates in these parts?”

“Surprisingly, Richard, no, I don't. Do enlighten me.”

Richard pauses. “Am I being over-dramatic?”

“Just a bit.”

He sighs and stops the car again, even though they've only driven a few metres down the dark lane leading back into town.

“I just don't know what we're doing,” he says quietly. “I really _don't know_ what we're doing. Every time we're together it's like we're in this big bubble. And it's wonderful, it is, only you forget that bubbles are totally transparent and rather likely to... pop.”

“You know, for an English teacher you're terrible with metaphors.”

Or was that a simile? Doesn't matter. Makes sense either way. Richard's right; it's easy to forget, sometimes, that other people exist, that other people have eyes and ears and moral codes of their own. What is it about other people and ruining everything?

“Let me take you home,” Richard says eventually.

“Can't I come to yours? It's Saturday tomorrow.”

“Aidan.” And that's really all Richard has to say, in that low tone of voice, but he continues anyway: “I just need some time to think about things. About everything.”

“But I thought you said you wanted us to –”

“I do, I do,” and he reaches across and gently puts his hand around the back of Aidan's neck, looks at him with warm, tired eyes.

Aidan puts his own hand on Richard's leg, rubbing his thumb against the rough stitching of his jeans.

“Kiss me,” he demands, in a quiet voice. He isn't sure what else he wants at this moment in time.

Richard continues to look at him, his eyes far too searching, as though he's thinking something that he isn't telling Aidan. Aidan grows uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “Come on, just kiss me,” he tries again, and this time Richard does, putting his big, warm hand against Aidan's jaw and closing the gap between them. Aidan puts his hand around the back of Richard's head and presses his tongue urgently into his mouth, like he's trying to convince him of something, prove something, and his other hand, the one on Richard's leg, travels further down, curving around the inside of Richard's thigh.

Richard pulls away.

“Aidan,” he says. He sighs, bumping his forehead very gently to Aidan's. Feeling stupid, Aidan removes his hand from Richard's lap. 

“At least come round tomorrow,” he murmurs.

“To yours?”

“Adam's gone home for the weekend, Dean's off to Manchester with Luke. The house'll be empty.”

“Are you sure?”

“Course I'm sure. I wouldn't lie. Adam's already gone, and Dean wouldn't miss a big art show for the world. Please come. I really want you to.”

He's not sure why he really wants Richard to now more than ever. Perhaps it's because, with this job rearing its head, Aidan's suddenly desperate for them to spend as much time together as possible. An empty house is an empty house. It's stupid to waste it.

He presses a soft kiss to Richard's jaw, until Richard turns to face him and Aidan can dot one to his lips, like that might swerve Richard in the direction Aidan wants, as though a kiss is something particularly extravagant. It works. Richard pulls back and rests their heads together and their noses brush and Richard closes his eyes, sighing gently like he's doing everything all wrong. And still he says, “Yes, fine. Alright.”

 

 

 

The next morning Dean's sprawled on the couch in his boxers, eating a huge bowl of Cookie Crisp he no doubt won't finish and watching cartoons.

Aidan is by the fireplace, debating whether to upturn, hide or leave the framed photograph of the three of them which sits on the mantel piece. Russell took it at their house warming party last year and had it framed as a gift for its comic value. In it they're all stripped to their underwear and covered in war paint. Dean is soaking wet and looking vaguely disorientated, Adam is keeled over and burying his face in his hands, and Aidan is passed out on the floor at their feet with an impressive range of unflattering words penned all over his skin.

All their other friends who visit the house or who've seen the version Facebook has to offer describe it as the one photo which sums up the entire household, which is really quite a fair summation. In the end, Aidan leaves it there. If you really like someone, it's better they know your true nature.

“Why are you cleaning?” Dean mumbles, eyes still glued to the TV.

“Because the house is a fucking tip.”

“No one's here to see it.”

“ _I_ am.”

“You never care normally.”

“Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything. Speaking of, why don't you _for the first time_ get up and help me?”

Dean does not answer this verbally, instead choosing to shove a huge spoonful of cereal into his mouth to make his point. Aidan wonders when Dean's going to stop milking this whole heartbreak thing. It's not exactly cute anymore.

“Well, are you at least gonna clean _yourself_?” Aidan asks him, flapping his dust towel in exasperation. “Luke'll be here in a minute.”

Still slowly chewing the colossal amount of cereal in his mouth, Dean puts his spoon down to glance at his watch which, weirdly, is the only other thing he's wearing besides his boxers. With a heavy sigh he puts the half-empty bowl down on the coffee table and gets up and leaves the room.

“I'll wash your bowl up then, shall I?” Aidan calls after him, shaking his head.

Dean calls back, “Thanks,” and moments later Aidan hears the shower start upstairs.

When Dean comes down a short while later he looks unfairly good, and Aidan is reminded of the need to make himself look equally as ravishing for when Richard gets here. Also, if Dean is trying to get Luke to stop liking him he's doing a lousy job of it. Aidan tells him so, and Dean frowns.

“It's not for Luke. I'm not gonna go to an art show looking like a dick, am I?” They hear the car draw up outside, just in time. “Oh great. He's here.”

“God, you don't even try to pretend you like him,” says Aidan. “Do you realise how unhealthy your relationship is? Just break up with the guy already!”

He immediately wishes he hadn't said that though, because he loves Dean and wants the best for him and everything but right now Aidan sort of needs him out of the house, and he doesn't want him changing his mind about going with Luke.

Fortunately, there seems to be no danger of that.

“Oh shove it, Aidan,” says Dean, making for the front door with his bag bumping on his hip. “You don't have a clue.”

The cheek of it! Aidan has half a mind to go after him for that, but restrains himself, just. This is no time for feuding. Dean can go be miserable with his awful boyfriend. Aidan isn't about to stop him.

He making the lounge dazzling (the kitchen's still a bit of a tip, but he'll just have to stop Richard from going in there) and then goes for his own shower and carefully weighs up the pros and cons of a pair of amazing jeans which are usually too tight to easily take off against a pair of less amazing jeans with far more breathing space.

He goes with the former. The bell rings just as he's pulling on a fifth different t-shirt, and Aidan almost trips in his haste to get down the stairs to answer the door. Richard is standing on the doorstep in that incredible cornflower blue.

He.

Has.

Brought.

Flowers.

“Are these for me?” Aidan squeaks in a tone of voice he's never heard himself use before, but which is a far cry from manly.

“I just wanted to apologise for being a bit useless yesterday,” Richard explains. “Erm, don't put them in the kitchen or lounge or whatever, for obvious reasons.”

Aidan takes the flowers with one hand and with the other pulls Richard in and closes the door and gives him a long, long kiss.

“Thank you,” he grins, feeling giddy and stupid. “I'll put them in some water, but I can take them up later. There's no rush. We have the whole day alone, remember?”

“Am I getting a tour then?” Richard asks, as Aidan leads him by the hand into the living room.

“Sure. This is the lounge. TV. Kitchen's through there. That's about it for downstairs.”

“It's very clean,” says Richard, sounding surprised. It's strange, in a wonderful way of course, to see him standing here in Aidan's front room. He looks almost too tall for the low ceilings and boxy furniture.

“Course it's clean! What were you expecting?”

“I don't know. Something a bit more studenty, I suppose.”

Aidan leaves him to sit down on the couch while he goes into the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers. He doesn't know why he thought there might be one. He finds a measuring jug and fills that with water instead, putting the flowers inside and leaving them on the windowsill. They're very pretty. Not that he knows too much about decent flowers, but based on the ones he sees in Tesco, this is a rather nice bouquet. The first bouquet he's ever received, in fact.

When he goes back into the living room, Richard's flipping through one of Adam's textbooks, part of a pile that sits perpetually on the coffee table.

“You have a thespian in the house?” he says.

“Adam,” Aidan clarifies. “And all the pictures lying about are Dean's. He's in the middle of some big project.”

“He's very good,” says Richard, closing the book, eyes drawn now to the sketches similarly piled high on the table beside Adam's books. Lacking the creative skills of his friends, Aidan has no work of his own to showcase.

“Yeah, he's really talented. He doesn't think he is. Well, maybe he does and just says he doesn't.” Aidan leans forward to pick up one of the pictures off the top of the pile. It's a startlingly accurate sketch of Judge Judy. “He watches a lot of TV,” he explains to Richard.

Returning the paper to the pile, they lean back against the couch without a word, and Aidan curls his legs beneath himself, settling into Richard's arms.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks, suddenly remembering how to be a host.

“I'm alright for now, thanks.”

“You sure? We have tea and coffee... oh, my parents went to Turkey a couple of weeks ago and they sent me this fancy _apple_ tea. Do you want some apple tea?”

“That sounds pretty vile.”

“Yeah, it is actually, I was hoping to fob it off on you,” says Aidan, and Richard laughs, pulling him tighter against him, kissing the top of his head. Aidan nestles into the embrarce. “Rich? Have you thought anymore about...”

“I have,” Richard replies, without Aidan needing to fiinsh. “But let's not talk about it just yet. We have the whole day. Let's just, you know, enjoy this for a while, shall we? I never thought we'd actually get to do this. Not in your house, at least.”

Aidan grins. “Like a normal couple,” he says, tilting his head to look at Richard, who smiles back before kissing him.

The angle is a little awkward, and Aidan has to twist in his spot and kneel up against Richard to kiss him properly. Then Aidan nuzzles at his neck, kissing the warm skin there, before capturing a few locks of soft, short hair around his fingers and twirling them.

“You look really nice today,” he murmurs, arching his back slightly when he feels Richard's hands settle there. Aidan dips his head, presses their mouths together and kisses Richard again, and it's soft and wet and Richard parts his lips to deepen it, arms going tight around Aidan's body. Aidan gives a small, pleased noise when the big hands slide up his sides, and he gradually shifts until he's fully in Richard's lap, rather than just leaning against it.

He mouths his way along Richard's jaw and nips playfully at the softness of his earlobe. He doesn't say what he's thinking, which is _you should stay in this city so we can do this all the time_ , and instead asks, “Wanna see my bedroom?”

Richard gives a quiet laugh. “In a little bit,” he murmurs back, and now he's the one to kiss Aidan, hot and open-mouthed and licking into his mouth, and Aidan's so so glad Adam decided to go home this weekend, and for once he's even glad for Luke's existence, the lovely stupid bastard, but those are his last coherent thoughts before he and Richard are toppling down onto the couch and writhing together like teenagers.

Kissing is lovely and everything, and Aidan is always up for a good bit of it in most circumstances, but he's already a little too turned on for teasing. It was the flowers that did it, he thinks. The flowers and the cornflower blue. Buttered him up considerably, so that everything suddenly feels like a Julia Roberts film.

“Richard,” he gasps, when bold fingers find his crotch and _squeeze_. “Can we... can I...?”

“Hmm?”

“I _really_ wanna blow you,” Aidan confesses, arching into the touch above him and at the same time dragging Richard closer with arms looped around his neck. “We haven't done that yet.”

Richard's done it to him once, the first time, but the few other times they've slept together it's been urgent and eager, and there's a lot Aidan still wants to do. Above him, Richard stills, swallows, and Aidan thinks for a moment he's going to say no, or at least make Aidan go and lock all the doors and windows in the house in preparation of a barricaded blowjob.

But Richard swiftly flips them so that Aidan's on top again, kisses him hard, says, “Have I mentioned how incredible you are?”

“Not nearly enough,” Aidan tells him, and he winks and grins and in a move actually pretty graceful considering his current flustered state, he slinks the low distance to the carpeted floor and positions them easily so that he's kneeling between Richard's legs.

He would like to say, very much, that what then follows is equally as graceful. It's not. Something happens to his body somewhere between removing himself from the couch to the floor, and once he's finally there his hands are tearing pretty rapidly at the fastenings on Richard's jeans.

Clearly, though, Richard does not mind. Rather, he laughs breathlessly when Aidan gets his jeans and boxers halfway down his thighs and leans forward to begin working a mark into the sharp jut of Richard's hipbone, licking and laving at it with his tongue, hands gliding up and down Richard'sthighs.

Richard gasps his name when Aidan takes him into his mouth, swallowing him down easily with no preamble. There'll be time for that later, but Aidan's sort of in the mood for quick and wet and messy, and there are no complaints coming from above. No coherent sentences at all, actually.

Richard isn't small by any stretch of the imagination, but he's polite and accommodating and while he grips Aidan's hair it's not too hard, and he doesn't thrust and when he speaks it's only to sing Aidan's praises, chanting soft psalms to his perfection.

“You have no idea,” he breathes now, “how often I've thought about this.”

Aidan can't help it; he gives a snort of laughter with his mouth still full, and Richard actually yelps and tugs his hair a tiny bit.

“Teeth, teeth!”

“Sorry,” says Aidan when he's pulled away, and as an apology he kisses around the base of Richard's dick, squeezing gently with his fingers, and when Richard's settled again Aidan goes back down, breathing sharp through his nose and opening his lips right up, lapping at the underside with his tongue.

Lips tight, he sinks back down over and over until he can feel Richard's legs go totally tense beneath his fingers, his breathing cutting heavy through the stillness of the room, and then Aidan pulls off slowly, mouth giving a lewd, wet pop as he does.

He wraps two fingers around the base of Richard's cock and looks up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, lips gleaming.

“God,” Richard's panting, all flustered and red-faced and messy. “Aidan, look at you.”

Aidan moves to begin kissing the soft skin of Richard's thighs, the wet head of his cock leaving a sticky trail along Aidan's cheekbone as he dips his head. His hand continues to move in slow, easy jerks, Richard's breath growing more and more ragged as Aidan presses feather-light kisses to his tightening abdomen, shuddering hips, the pale inside of his thighs.

“Christ, I'm there already,” Richard tells him in a low voice, digging his fingers into the arm of the sofa, and it sounds like a confession, almost like he's embarrassed, but at the same time he's so gloriously wrecked that Aidan's own erection presses uncomfortably against the tight denim of his trousers. Should have gone for the breathing space jeans after all.

He quickens his hand, whispering encouragements, as Richard lets his head fall back with a long, guttural groan. With a final pull of Aidan's hand that's _it_ ; Richard's mouth drops open to let out a half-shattered moan as he comes, and Aidan watches him, breathing heavy, feels the wetness land on his lips and chin. When everything settles he wipes his mouth, lowers his head and takes Richard into his mouth once more, the fingers in his hair at first weakly encouraging until Richard has to pull him off.

Aidan crawls back up into his lap and loops his arms around his neck and kisses him hard, and when they pull apart Richard looks a little dazed.

“So was that alright?” Aidan asks cheekily.

“Bloody hell, Aid.”

“Cup of tea now?”

Richard shakes his head, kissing him again. “No, no, you're staying right here,” he says, pulling Aidan down on to the sofa with him, nuzzling into his neck until Aidan laughs. Then the front door bangs inwards, and Aidan yelps and falls off the couch. When he opens his eyes it's to see Dean standing over him, looking vaguely horrified.

“Ohhh my God,” Dean drags out.

“Oh my God,” Aidan murmurs.

Richard says nothing, just gives a small, pained little groan from his place on the sofa.


	14. Chapter 14

Of the three of them, Aidan's always been the least over-dramatic. First place obviously goes to Adam, who finds fault in pretty much every way they run the household and cries bitterly upon finding mice or big spiders in the garden shed and will always always _always_  go out of his way to save money at supermarkets, no matter how much of a scene he makes in the process, or how little a saving it actually is.

Then there's Dean, who's a bit of a puzzle really. On the one hand he's incredibly chilled out when it comes to deadlines, food, sex and responsibilities, but on the other he has a habit of feeling immensely sorry for himself whenever the tiniest little thing doesn't go his way. When Dean is happy, his aura is as soft and blue as the Hauraki Gulf. When he's upset, then by God you will know about it.

And then there's Aidan. Of course, he knows he has a _few_ issues. He knows he can be terribly over-enthusiastic which makes for some big disappointments in the long run. And he knows that, unlike Dean who snarks and Adam who sulks, when he's angry he's much more likely to shout, or simply destroy something.

But that takes a lot, and Aidan's not angry right now. He's just panicked, tense, slightly sick, so when he hauls Dean up to his bedroom he doesn't shout or snap at him. He calmly sits him down on the bed and puts his hands on Dean's little shoulders and says, “Dean. What are you doing here?”

Dean says, “Hey, I pay rent here too!”

“That's very true. What's also true is that you said you were going to be away all weekend.”

“Plans change.”

“What changed?”

“Well... I'm single now.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I broke up with Luke. Proud of me?” He looks so proud of him _self_ that Aidan feels like he's about to berate a puppy.

“What - why did you break up with him?!”

The smile drops from Dean's face. “You _told_ me to.”

“I didn't mean, like, immediately! I meant after your little... thing you were doing together this weekend.”

“Well, I was gonna stick it out and all, but he was being really annoying in the car and then I thought oh God, I've gotta spend the whole night with him and there won't even be internet or a toaster. Because it's one of those fancy hotels where all they have on the room service menu is, like, fruit platters and stuff. And I mean, okay, I could have passed the time watching River Monsters, but I can guarantee he would have made me switch it over to those fucking back-to-back Top Gear marathons. Which is fine and everything, but sometimes I really just wanna watch River Monsters, and he has a real issue with the show. Then again, we probably wouldn't have even watched TV at all, we probably would have just had sex. I'm sure you think there's no problem with that, but there is such a thing as _too much_ stamina, Aidan. I didn't think there was before I met him, but there is. Sometimes I just wanna watch River Monsters without him getting his penis out. Is that too much to ask?”

Aidan pinches the bridge of his nose, hard. “No. No, it's not.”

“Well then! What would _you_ have done? Anyway, I wouldn't have come back if I'd known you were doing the dirty with your teacher. I mean, it's not like I'm _trying_ to get in the way. If you'd told me, I'd have kept out, but you didn't tell me!”

“Yes, well, there's a reason for that.”

Dean stares at him, clearly hurt. “What – you didn't think I'd _tell_ someone?”

“Not intentionally perhaps, but Dean...” Aidan sighs. “You've got to admit you do have a habit of getting blind drunk and blurting things out, mate.”

“I do not! What about that time you accidentally stole those drawer runners from Homebase, I didn't tell anyone about that. Besides, I'm your best friend! I told you about Graham.”

“Exactly! You're just proving my point! You told me about Graham when you were completely hammered and angry.”

“I would have told you eventually anyway.”

“Yes, and I would have _eventually_ told you about Richard. Just not yet.”

“When then?”

“When I was... more certain what's going on between us.”

“Between you and me?”

“Between Richard and I, you idiot!”

“Oh. Well. Are you in a relationship with him?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you _want_ to be in a relationship with him?”

“I don't know! And I'm not about to take dating advice from someone who breaks up with his boyfriend because he wants to watch River Monsters!”

“I think you're kind of missing the point there, Aidan –”

A frustrated noise wrenches its way from Aidan's throat, and he has to stop himself from pulling hard on Dean's perfectly coiffed hair. He stands up, brushing imaginary dust from his jeans, straightening his t-shirt as if it will straighten out the situation.

“Look,” he sighs. “I have to go downstairs and speak to him and I have to convince him that everything's alright, and you have to promise me you're not going to tell anyone.”

“Of course I'm not gonna tell anyone!”

“ _Promise_ me.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “I promise.”

“Swear on your life?”

Dean hesitates. “Swear on _Adam's_ life. What? I've gotta cover myself! Don't worry, I like Adam, you're safe.”

Aidan doesn't feel particularly safe as he pads quietly back downstairs. He's half convinced he'll come across Richard soaking a rag in chloroform, ready to make Dean keep quiet via more illicit methods of his own.

As it happens, Richard's on the couch sitting very, very still.

“Richard?” Aidan says tentatively, edging his way into the room. It's as though they're strangers and Aidan hasn't just gone down on the guy. “I, er, I spoke to Dean.”

Richard says nothing.

“He's not gonna tell anyone,” Aidan continues, “so you don't have to worry.”

“Don't I?” says Richard. He's using that tone of voice he uses in class when he's warning about the perils of plagiarism.

“Of course not! He's my best friend.”

“And what does that count for?”

Aidan's not quite sure what to make of this, and his initial reaction is to feel mildly offended.

“Well... it's like Scout's Honour, isn't it?”

Richard's looking mournfully down at the coffee table now, at the marks from Dean's stubbed-out cigarettes days ago, at the picture of Judge Judy. Suddenly, he stands up.

“I should go,” he sighs.

“You don't have to.”

“No, I do. I need time alone to think about things.”

Panic shoots through Aidan's entire body like an electric shock. He steps forward so they're close together, Richard towering above him.

“What's there to think about?” Aidan asks, reaching out and gently taking hold of Richard's arm. “I swear he won't tell anyone, Richard, it's not a big deal.”

“Of course it's a big deal!” Richard snaps, so suddenly that Aidan takes that step straight back again. “Anyone other than us knowing about this is a big deal, regardless of whether or not you think his word counts for anything.”

“It _does_ count for something.”

“Look, I appreciate that he's your friend but it doesn't matter who it is! The more people who know about this, the riskier it becomes.”

“Why do you have to say it like that? Why are you treating this like it's something wrong?”

“Because in the eyes of the university, it is!”

“It's completely legal.”

“And completely unethical. They'd see it as an abuse of power. They'd consider all your assignment marks void. I don't know where you've got these romanticized ideas from, Aidan, but I can guarantee that people finding out about this would do me absolutely no favours in terms of my career.”

“Well, why are you here then? If I'm such a fucking nuisance?”

Richard takes hold of him then, holds his face in both hands and looks at him with a frankness that makes Aidan uncomfortable. Aidan realises he could get away with kissing him, and that might soften him up, but the blue eyes hold his gaze and suddenly he knows he can't just be cute anymore. He shouldn't be trying to just get away with things.

Because it's suddenly hit him that a world – his world – without Richard is an actual possibility. That lonely, drunken evenings at The Pit, and one night stands, and singing 'All By Myself' on the couch at 2am are actual possibilities. That he might become the eponymous Bridget Jones, that he might become _Dean_ , has hit Aidan just now, and hard, and he lifts a hand to hold Richard's fingers where they're pressed against his face. He feels them carefully, long and beautiful as they are, and tries very hard to convey with his eyes that that isn't a world he wants.

Richard pulls away.

“I'm going to head off, okay?” he says softly. “I'll call you tonight, how about that?”

Aidan nods and thinks about apologizing, but no matter how much he wants Richard to like him, he's still filled with a distinct sense that this isn't really his fault at all.

When Richard's gone, Dean comes downstairs and pokes his head round the lounge door looking sheepish. Aidan can't be mad at him. When he thinks reasonably about it, he knows this isn't really Dean's fault either.

 

 

 

He asks Dean if he can get them weed on Sunday night. That was what they always did in first year when they tried to be proper students and were eager enough to feel invincible but too scared to try anything heavier. Aidan will never admit to just how much he loves that paradoxical feeling of being both young and wise.

But Dean says, “What are you, twelve? Let's just go out and get pissed.”

Because Dean's grown up, of course, and his aversion to weed is totally to do with that and totally not to do with the fact that the last time he was high he snogged a homeless man in return for him kick-starting their beach bonfire with streetwise expertise.

Aidan loves beach bonfires and feeling the sand and cold sea against his bare feet and climbing through the sun roof of a moving car and anything else that screams _seize the day_ , because he's a Lit student and, by default, mildly pretentious. But it's difficult to do all that without the help of other substances, because when you're sober and you're trying to have fun and you're trying to be quirky and you're trying to carpe that good old diem, it's hard. You can have fun, but you're very _aware_ of having fun.

Weed eradicates that awareness. But Dean won't get them weed, so they dress nice and go out and get drunk instead.

“I've missed this,” says Dean, squeezing his hand, when it's nearing midnight and they're both buzzing pleasantly.

They've bypassed The Cockpit in favour of Velvet. Still a gay bar, still with a sticky floor and the perpetual stench of sweat, but there's better music and they can get vodka mixers for less than three quid.

“Just you and me, out on the prowl! Or not, in your case.” Dean lifts his drink to his lips, then pauses. “Or my case. Still, nice to be out, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” Aidan agrees, squeezing Dean's hand back. “I'm sorry, I've just been spending so much time with Richard lately.”

He's a little drunk, but there's still a soberish part of him which also acknowledges that it's nice to finally be more open about these things with a friend.

“And I've been spending so much time with Luke,” says Dean.

“God, Luke. What a dick!”

“Yeah, what a dick! Also, _what_ a dick.”

Aidan wrinkles his nose. “Dean.”

“I'm just saying! That's probably what I'll miss the most if I had to pick something.”

“You said he had too much stamina...”

“Yeah, but when _I_ was up for it... like honestly, Aid, why d'you think I was with him for so long?”

“Pity, I assumed.”

“Yeah, bits of both, I guess. Pity and decent penises, that's what the majority of my relationships are based on.”

Aidan snorts loudly into his drink and gets most of it up his nose. Dean doesn't sympathize with him because he's too busy being pleased with himself.

“There, see, there's that pretty smile!” He reaches out and pushes his finger against the corner of Aidan's mouth like he's trying to keep the smile in place. “So. You gonna tell me about Richard?”

“Mmm, nope.”

“Why not? I told you about Luke.”

“You told me he's well-hung and irritating.”

“What else was there to say? Come on, I wanna hear what's going on in your life. I'm totally aware that all I've done recently is talk about myself.”

Aidan's not sure because, as has already been mentioned, he's getting pretty drunk, but he thinks that what Dean's just said might be quite sweet, in a way. In a Dean kind of way.

“So you're only really asking because you think you should,” says Aidan.

“I'm asking because I care.”

Sitting there, swilling the remains of his drink in its glass, Aidan mentally weighs up the pros of telling Dean everything against the cons. Of course, nothing can get much worse because Dean already knows about Richard, but at the same time there's something Aidan wants to keep to himself, and he's not quite sure what it is. The terrifying depth of his own feelings, perhaps, the nature of which he hasn't even properly come to terms with himself.

Then again, maybe he just wants to keep quiet out of respect. It's not unusual for Dean to relay the exact details of every one of his bed partner's spots and whims, and normally Aidan would be exactly the same. There's something making him shut up this time. Something he hasn't a name for, and which he can't even pinpoint inside his head. Especially not now, drunk.

He looks at Dean and smiles. “Another time, eh?”

Dean shrugs. “Another time, then.”

“I'm gonna grab a refill, you want one?”

“Yeah, alright. Same again please.”

Aidan necks his drink and gets a little unsteadily to his feet. In most clubs, the genial atmosphere reaches its peak around midnight and stays fairly constant for a good few hours at least. Velvet, being that it is slightly seedier than your average high street establishment, bypasses this period entirely. From the moment you step in till the moment you leave, voices are raised, speakers are blown, and everyone is flirting aggressively with one another.

Because Aidan is tall and long-limbed and a bit severe looking (“striking” Adam once said, when he was blusteringly trying to console Aidan after telling him his eyebrows made him look intimidating) he cannot roll invisibly through the crowds and instead has to put up with one pair of grabbing hands and, at another point, a frankly painful slap to the arse. He whips round, but his obvious indignation only causes a ripple of amusement to pass through the two beefy looking guys grinning at him, clutching pints. One of them's wearing an ill-fitting wifebeater printed with one word: 'Woof'.

At one point (that point being eighteen years old during his first semester of university) Aidan might actually have felt flattered by the gesture, no matter who was giving it. Coming to terms with his sexuality meant that any attention was good attention. Now all he feels is a burning humiliation and a rather unmanly desire to yell, “I have a boyfriend!”

He doesn't, needless to say, yell that he has a boyfriend. He's not especially keen to have two drunk men laugh in his face, and by the time Aidan makes it to the bar they've thankfully disappeared. As soon as he orders the drinks someone else is sizing him up.

“Can I get that for you?” asks a man with intensely waxed eyebrows and a studded snapback.

“No, no thanks,” Aidan says, pretty politely he thinks. It's ridiculous, because when he was single and actively _looking_ for attention, it never felt like he was getting nearly enough. He smiles tightly, and the man seems to think this overrides what Aidan's just said.

“Come on, let me pay.”

“I'm buying for two, so...” He turns back to the barman to signal the end of the conversation, which doesn't come.

“Your boyfriend?” the man prompts.

Stupidly, Aidan says, “No.”

“Well then.” And a hand, rough and sweaty, finds its way on to Aidan's bare arm, and he flinches hard.

“I said no! Do you not get what that means? Jesus.”

The man stares at him, clearly confused, then says, quite viciously, “Fuck off, then,” as if the only reason Aidan is at the bar is to decide whether or not he wants to go home with a man in a gold snapback.

Aidan wants to be in the grass with daffodils at his feet, not here where the carpet sticks to his shoes. He forgets the drinks and shoulders past the man, catches Dean's eye and motions to the door because now he wants to leave.

“What's wrong?” Dean asks as soon as they're outside. He stumbles a little behind Aidan, a tad more drunk. “Did someone bother you?”

“No, let's just go.”

“Aidan, what is it? You were fine a minute ago.”

“I just wanna go, alright?”

They make it halfway down the street before Aidan finds it in himself to talk, because really he knows he wants Dean to keep asking and caring.

“It's just weird being here, when I've got a... when there's Rich.”

“We weren't _doing_ anything...”

“No, but it's the assumption in places like that, isn't it, that you're only there to...” Aidan sighs. “And it's why _we_ always went, isn't it? Really?”

“Well, do you wanna go somewhere else? I think The Penny Bank's round here –”

“Can we just go home? I don't want to be a bore, I just...”

“No, no, we can go home,” Dean says just a second too late, and he jams his hands in his pockets and makes it rather obvious he's going out of his way to not seem annoyed.

They walk back in relative silence, and though Dean's a little put out Aidan can't find it in himself to care. He's never really had that kind of flip reaction before and he can't exactly explain it, can only explain that he doesn't want to be out here anymore in these humming, dirty streets. Doesn't see the thrill in a night out when he isn't trying to meet anyone, when the person he wants to be with isn't here.

Adam's suitcase is in the hall when they get back, but the house is quiet and dark. Aidan and Dean traipse into the living room, switch a lamp on and sit down heavily on the couch.

The silence rings. Dean drums his fingers against his thighs.

“You want a beer?” he asks eventually.

“Yeah, sure.”

Dean goes and comes back from the kitchen with a couple of Stellas, tossing one into Aidan's hands. They crack them open and drink deeply before slipping back into silence. Dean's the first to speak.

“You're kind of serious about him, aren't you?”

“Hm?”

“Richard.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

“Well don't sound too happy about it.”

“No, it's just, you know. It seems the more I like him the higher the chance he's not gonna be around soon.”

“Hey, I thought Adam was the mighty pessimist.”

Aidan smiles and thinks about telling Dean about the job in London but doesn't.

“Dean,” he says slowly instead, staring at the marks on the coffee table. “Are you over Graham?”

It's clear it takes a moment or two for the question to properly register, but when it does Dean sounds normal enough.

“No.”

“I really, really like Richard. I don't want him to go away, you know?”

He's still drunk, of course. The Stella isn't helping, but Aidan barely cares. He's tired now, thinks he could sleep for years but also thinks that if Dean asked him any question now he probably wouldn't think twice about telling him the answer.

“But I just feel like other people wouldn't understand. Except you,” he says after a while. “It's like... you know when you go to therapy and they show you those black and white pictures and you have to say what you see in them, and it might be different to what someone else sees in them, and what _you_ see says something big and important about how your mind works? That's what it's like with Rich. When I see him I just see a man, any man I could've met on the street. And it's really easy to forget that half of society would think it's wrong that he's a man in the first place, and the other half would be up in arms that he's my teacher. And you can't win. It doesn't matter how you feel about someone. You can't win, Deano, can you?”

Dean reaches across to bury his spare hand in Aidan's hair.

“Of course not,” he smiles. “Why would anyone make things easy for people like us?”

“But we're not making it easy for ourselves, really, are we?” Aidan twists to look across at Dean, who's looking steadily back at him. “Fucking our teachers, I mean.”

Dean laughs at that. “Maybe you're right. But they don't make it easy for us, being so damned delectable. Richard is _gorgeous_ , mate.”

They slip down the couch in unison, lean woozy and drunken towards each other so their shoulders and waists and legs are pressed together, and with a little sigh Aidan pillows his head on Dean's shoulder.

“Hmm, I know,” he sighs, heavier and drowsier the more he leans down. “Fuck, I know. And he wants _me_ , can you believe that?”

Smile softened, Dean pinches Aidan's cheek between thumb and forefinger, cold and slightly damp from holding his beer bottle.

“I can believe that,” he says gently.

“Stop flirting with your best mate, O'Gorman. It's no good.”

“Aw, and here's me thinking I had a chance.”

Aidan scoffs into his shoulder. “In your dreams.”

“Yeah, dreams, dreaming sounds good,” Dean mumbles, eyelids drifting closed. “I'm gonna sleep here.”

They do, both of them.


	15. Chapter 15

Adam's Drama ball is on Wednesday. While he's out for the morning picking up his tux, Aidan takes the opportunity to go and buy his birthday present. Initially, he and Dean had hopes of getting Adam some big, shiny surprise. Something sentimental yet intrinsically and undeniably cool, something which said, hey, your other friends can try all they like to get you the gift of your dreams, Adam, but no one can beat the thoughtfulness and sheer generosity of your lovely housemates.

Alas, achieving such a thing is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

For starters, all of Aidan's ideas have been really mundane things like an electric hand whisk or a new laptop battery, and although Adam _does_  like baking and does complain about the battery life on his laptop a lot, these gifts are neither sentimental nor remotely cool, and the thought of someone unwrapping them on their birthday is just depressing. Dean, on the other hand, could only use his extensive artist's imagination to suggest food or some form of novelty sex toy. He has a habit, at birthday and Christmas times, of only suggesting the things he personally would find most amusing.

So, finally, they've both agreed to go halves on a box-set of The West Wing. Well, it was between that and Ghost Whisperer. Adam is partial to both, so Aidan and Dean made their mutual decision based on IMDb ratings (and which one they'd rather see themselves).

“You coming to town then?” Aidan asks Dean on Wednesday morning, shrugging himself into his jacket.

Dean looks thoughtful for a moment. “Nah, mate.”

“But... Adam's birthday present.”

“Oh! Oh right, yeah.” Dean pulls himself away from the sofa for a moment to dig in his jeans pocket, producing his wallet. He opens it up, takes out a clutch of notes and shoves them at Aidan. “There you go, buddy.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“Oh don't look so put out. Joy's in for Monday, I've got work to do.”

Aidan looks incredulously between Dean and the blaring television set. “You're watching Johnny Bravo!”

“I'm working myself up to a happy state. This is all prep.”

“God, you are so _lazy_. Fine, well you're not gonna see me for the rest of the day.”

That panics Dean. “No no no, you have to be back by at least six. Adam's bringing his friends round for pre-drinks and I am not going to be the one entertaining them.”

“Keep out of their way, then.”

“What if they come in my room? You know what actors are like, they're killer bees. Big, nosy killer bees. It's not even eleven yet, you've got hours to shag your boyfriend. Be back by six.”

“Have I ever told you, Dean, that you're literally the most insensitive person I know?”

Aidan says this, but he  _knows_  in his pushover heart that he'll appease Dean. All he can do is roll his eyes when he trudges out into the hallway and opens the front door just in time to hear Dean call out, “Love you!”

 

 

 

They've checked the prices online, and Argos is the cheapest option. The West Wing's a tenner less in there than in HMV, but Aidan's always sort of detested Argos with its long, winding queues and fiddly little pens and tickets and labyrinth catalogues. Only the English would create something as weird as a shop where people can buy just about anything in the world but _none of it is on the shelves_.

The employees are way too up in people's business as well. Once Aidan's order finally comes through the girl at the counter trills, “I love this series, it's fabulous! Is it for you or a friend?” and Aidan, thinking she's going to offer to gift wrap it or something, confirms that it is for a friend. No gift wrapping option is presented to him. She just goes, "Well what a lovely person _you_ are! Have a good day now!”

Two years of living in England has made it clear to Aidan that, when it comes to shop workers, they're either totally miserable or scarily bright. There's no in between.

Still, at least that's done with now. It can be ticked off the list. As for the party on Friday, that's already been organised. He got a message on Facebook yesterday from one of Adam's weirdo pals which essentially just said:  _hey boy you live w/ adam yea? we'll use your place for party?_

Aidan had been hesitant, but Dean was all for it. “Think about it, Aid! We can get as drunk as we like and we don't have to worry about getting home!”

Aidan's beginning to think Dean has some serious problems. But he pushes those problems along with Dean, Adam and the impending doom of the party to the back of his mind as he places the box-set carefully in his bag and pads along to the nearest bus stop, going all the way to Hunter's Gate.

It's not as though he's invading; Richard _did_ ask him to come round. They haven't spoken properly since the little issue (not an argument, definitely not an argument) on Saturday, which in all honesty has left Aidan feeling pretty miserable. They've seen each other in class, of course, but it's hardly the same. In fact, it's getting a little boring. Now that the mystery's gone, now that Aidan knows what Richard's voice sounds like rough and sleepy first thing in the morning, lectures don't hold the same glamour they used to.

And anyway, they're breaking up for revision next week. Then it really will be up to the both of them to keep in touch.

Richard opens the door with his tie loose and his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, and Aidan's impatience melts into something more like brimming adoration, and he greets Richard with a smile and a kiss on the cheek.

Richard looks utterly flustered. “I haven't even closed the door yet.”

“Sorry, totally slipped my mind that you've a spy ring squatting across the road,” says Aidan, rolling his eyes. He ducks under Richard's arm and lets himself into the house, dumping his bag in the hallway and toeing off his shoes as he goes. “We are now entering Day Five. O'Gorman still hasn't cracked. What's your plan of action, sir? Do you plan on entering into a state of Red Alert? Do you believe an attack to be imminent?” He flicks one neatly plastered wall. “How many days have you been hiding out here?”

Behind him he hears Richard sigh, and Aidan turns just in time to see him closing the door.

“Very funny,” he says flatly.

“I'm serious. Wanna make sure you've stocked up on canned milk and crackers.”

Richard comes up close enough to wind his arms around Aidan's waist. “Really.”

“Really really.” Aidan leans into it and wraps his own arms around Richard, breathing in his scent and the scent of the hallway surrounding them, sweet like sawdust and cinnamon. It smells like a home. “I'm concerned about you, Rich. Haven't seen you for days.”

“We've seen each other in class.”

“Not _properly_.”

“No,” Richard murmurs, and then he smiles, “not properly.”

Aidan sighs, giving into him, the warmth and solidness and sweet scent that Richard supplies in buckets, without even trying. Aidan only lifts his head from Richard's shoulder to kiss him.

“I'm sorry,” Richard mumbles against his lips. “I'm sorry for how I spoke to you the other day.”

“It's fine.”

“It's not, Aidan, I was being unfair. I trust you, so I should... I should trust your friends.” He says that, but there's something in his voice Aidan doesn't like. Something uncertain. Still, Richard deserves points for trying all the same. It isn't easy, pretending not to be paranoid.

Aidan winds his arms around Richard's neck, feeling with his hands the hot skin and soft, bristly hair there. He leans to nudge their noses together.

“Let's talk about this later.” Or, you know, never. “Bed first. _Five whole days_ you've made me wait, you sadist.”

Perhaps that's not the best thing to say. If Richard does move away, Aidan will have to wait a lot longer than five days just for a face-to-face conversation. Richard tactfully - naturally - doesn't bring it up. He forces his smile in place and on a whim sweeps Aidan up into his arms, prompting a rather unmanly yelp to echo through the hallway. He carries him to the lounge and tosses him on to the couch in a way that never really gets old.

They don't have sex, but Richard brings Aidan off with slow strokes of his hand and deep, searching kisses. Once he's caught his breath, Aidan lethargically returns the favour. Then they lie tangled together with nothing covering them but the remains of their clothes and the throw pillows, and Richard presses a kiss to Aidan's sweaty temple, arm wrapped tight round his body.

“Let's go away,” he says breathlessly, simply, like he's suggesting they put the telly on. “During the summer, let's go away.”

“Where?”

“I don't know, anywhere you like.”

“Ibiza?”

“Well...”

“No, no, Rome. I've _always_ wanted to go to Rome.”

“Rome we could do. Yeah, we could do Rome.”

Aidan peers at him, sceptical. “You're not being serious, are you?”

“Of course I am.”

“You're not. You shouldn't do that, it's mean. You'll get my hopes up.”

They slip into silence, staring at a whitewashed ceiling.

“Maybe... maybe this job offer's come at the right time,” Richard says after a while, because one of them has to.

“Richard...”

“I think it could be good for us. None of the panic or the worry.”

“ _I_ don't panic or worry,” Aidan mumbles. “That's just you, and it's totally irrational. And anyway...” He props himself up on one elbow. “How could it be good for us? We'd never get to do this.”

“I would have thought our relationship is based on more than just _this_ , Aidan.”

“Well, of course it is, but I'd never see you!”

“You could come and visit. Wouldn't you want to visit London?”

“I couldn't _afford_ to visit London.”

“I wouldn't expect you to. You could come and stay some weekends or whatever. I could, you know, _introduce_ you to people. Without it being frowned upon. We could be open about things, and you know I'd pay.”

“Make me sound like some kinda kept woman.”

“I'm trying to make the best of the situation. From your side of things, it'd be good for you not to have so many distractions. Third year's important.”

“But I'd be distracted by how much I _miss_ you,” says Aidan, and he tries to wear Richard down with a pout and more kisses pressed fleetingly to any inch of skin they can find. He thinks he might be overstepping cute now and verging more on the dangerous territory of needy, especially if Richard's lack of reciprocation is anything to go by.

“I have a meeting about it on Friday,” he says, actually holding Aidan back with a hand on his chest now, like he's scared he's going to be won over otherwise. “Before our tutorial. If you stay behind after, we can talk about it then.”

“I don't think I could stay long, it's Adam's birthday on Friday. There's a party at our house which I'm still not totally sure I'm alright with, but it's happening anyway. Hey, d'you wanna come?”

“Yeah, sounds excellent! Casual or suit and tie affair? Red or white wine?”

Aidan rolls his eyes. “Alright, maybe you do have a point. It _would_ be nice to be in a place where I can let everyone know just who exactly my gorgeous, paranoid boyfriend is.”

Richard takes hold of the hand that's currently prodding him rather insistently in the chest, and swipes a gentle thumb along the back of it.

“So I'm your boyfriend, am I?”

“Well come on, Rich,” Aidan laughs. “You're hardly just my _buddy_ , are you?”

 

 

 

The Thespians have taken over his home when he gets back. Aidan's fine about it until he realises they've eaten the last of the cheese strings _and_ the expensive ham in the fridge. The expensive ham!

He marches up to Adam's bedroom to ask when his friends, who are scattered all over the lounge and kitchen in varying states of drunkenness, are leaving. The words die on his lips when he walks in. Adam's standing in front of the mirror, wrestling with his bow tie and looking utterly _hopeless_. Aidan sighs. Adam jumps and turns around.

“Oh, Aidan,” he squeaks, “it's you.”

“Looking a little hot and bothered there, man.” He is, actually. Aidan glances round the tidy room, half expecting to find a naked man lounging in Adam's bed.

“I'm fine, just having a bit of trouble with the old bow tie!” says Adam, flicking it exasperatedly.

Tutting like a fond mother, Aidan comes and unwraps the fabric where it's twisted round Adam's collar. Straightening it and draping the longer end over the shorter, he smiles down at him.

“You alright, Ads? You look nervous.”

“I'm fine! I'm fine. It's just... you know, dances and stuff. Not a big dance guy, you know me. Expect I'll be home by ten!”

He lets out a strange laugh, high and a little shrill, and Aidan narrows his eyes ever so slightly, still working the black fabric between his fingers.

“Anyway,” Adam goes on, averting his gaze, “what did you get up to today?”

“Ah, wouldn't you like to know?”

“Well. Perhaps not.”

“You look great, by the way. Really handsome!”

Adam shakes his head, still tilting it slightly as Aidan fixes the tie for him. “No, I don't, Aid,” he sighs.

Aidan pulls back to look at him. “What are you talking about? Course you do! Much better than that fuckin' lot downstairs anyway. They ate the fancy ham, I've been saving that for – anyway, you look really nice, honestly. You taking anyone?”

“Dateless as ever.”

Aidan wants to ruffle Adam's hair, but it's already slick and firm with gel.

“Well, who needs a date? You'll be fighting them off, buddy.” He finishes the tie with a flourish. “You fancy your drama coach, don't you? What's his name, Lee? Bet he won't be able to keep his hands off you.”

“Don't joke about stuff like that!” Adam snaps, so firmly that the smile immediately drops from Aidan's face.

“Alright, alright, chill out! God, get a drink in you, man.”

“No, we're heading off now, we're going to be late. Now look, the shepherd's pie my mum sent is on the bottom shelf of the fridge, just cover it in foil and stick it in the oven at about 350 for half an hour. She's seen you on Facebook and she wants me to tell you that you're very skinny and you should eat even if you don't think it's, erm, trendy. I did tell her you have a mother of your own and that you eat almost as much as Dean, but she was having none of it. I'm telling you all this because I don't want you to be surprised by the size... of the pie. Okay? Okay. I'm going now. Yes, I'm going.”

Adam does indeed go, after about twenty more minutes spent dawdling and rounding up the lightweight actors. He doesn't get back until 2 a.m. Aidan and Dean are still up playing Red Bull-fuelled Halo and eating cold shepherd's pie leftovers when Adam stumbles through the door and collapses onto the couch, spectacularly drunk.

 

 

 

“ _Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Adam –_ ”

“Open your present!” Dean demands.

Aidan sighs, but thrusts the hefty package into Adam's lap all the same. Dean was the one who wrapped it, so it's pretty and neat with a bow. He made the card too, which is essentially just a big piece of folded A3 paper with Adam's confused little face painted expertly on the front, a party hat strapped to his head. Inside they've written _we love you even though you're old and kind of a stress head, Aidan and Dean x_.

Adam seems to like it, in spite of the slightly bewildered expression on his face. West Wing he's a little more vocal about, and Aidan and Dean are rewarded with lots of _oh guys, you shouldn't have_ s and then, most importantly, a massive breakfast. Maybe they should be cooking on Adam's birthday, but since no one brings it up it goes unquestioned.

The pile of gifts on the coffee table is pretty modest. Aidan can see a box-set of The Lord of the Rings he's immediately interested in, and on top of that a copy of Pink Flamingoes he's less enamoured by. Adam's mum's bought him new plates. Ah, the joys of ageing.

In fact, the signs of ageing are shown even more after breakfast when every ounce of excitement just dies down and soon trickles down the drain with the dregs of breakfast ketchup altogether. Adam goes upstairs to get dressed and then, without much more than a squeak of a goodbye, heads off to an early rehearsal. An hour later, Dean sets out to his Photography tutorial. People come at lunch time to start setting up for the party which, rather than a normal evening party, is one that's going to stretch from afternoon until... well, until everyone has passed out. Aidan leaves them to it and heads off to English.

The day is absolutely _gorgeous_. The sky glows uniformly blue, though the glare of the sun breaks the pattern with a distinct sense of permanency. That'll be good for the party, at least. Keep people out of the house. Maybe they'll stay up late and drink in the garden and listen to trendy neo-folk music, like they did all the first week of September during that exquisite Indian Summer. Yeah, that doesn't sound too bad at all.

Aidan finds he's actually smiling by the time he reaches the building. Then he goes inside, and Richard isn't there.

It's Hadlow, would you believe it, and he gives Aidan a pretty steely gaze when he walks in. Aidan glances around.

“Where's Richard?”

“Meeting. Sit down.”

So Aidan does, though not without an irritated glance in his professor's direction. Shouldn't come as a surprise, really, since the guy's always been a bit of a moody bastard. Maybe it's just a cut in the otherwise pretty great day Aidan's having so far. It was inevitable, really.

They talk both Shelleys for an hour. They hand in their assignments. Then Hadlow dismisses them.

By now, Aidan's annoyance has simmered and settled. Tutorials are normally one of the best parts of his week, and he's not going to see Richard for the rest of the day unless he tries to catch him now. It's just his luck that that bloody meeting would run over. He barrels down the stone steps and waits until everyone's gone before sidling up to Richard's office door and pressing his ear against it. There are no voices coming from inside. He knocks.

Richard tells him to come inside. When Aidan does, he sees him sitting alone at his desk. The spring breeze from the open window's ruffling his hair a bit, but other than that he's completely still. It's warm in here, but Aidan feels the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

“Did your meeting run over?” he asks after a while. He goes for casual; it comes out tentative.

“We had a lot to talk about,” Richard nods. “How was the tutorial?”

“Fine.”

“Did Mark take in your assignments?”

“Yep.”

Aidan lingers by the door a moment longer, before taking a step forward. He thinks about sitting in the empty chair, but Richard hasn't given any indication that he wants him to. He stands in the middle of the room instead, stupidly, and Richard doesn't look at him.

“So what then?” Aidan asks, when the silence begins to ring. “What have you decided?”

“I'm going to London.”

Aidan feels like he's been gutted. Long, long pent-up emotion swells inside him, dormant until now, and he tries his best to curb it.

“What, that's it then? You've just decided you're going and that's that?”

Finally, Richard looks at him.

“I hadn't decided anything until my meeting this morning, Aidan. It was decided for me. They know. About us, I mean, they know.”

Aidan's mouth moves without necessarily finding the right words.

“Wait so, hang on, you're saying that people... the Pro Dean and stuff... they know that we're together?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's not possible because –”

“Isn't it?”

“No, it's not! There's no one who could've... there's no one...”

“Well, let's see,” says Richard, and he leans forward in his seat with his tie loose and his hands firm in his lap like an angry detective. “Now, I know I didn't tell anyone because I have known from day one what an incredibly stupid thing that would be to do. Did _you_ tell anyone?”

“No!”

“Right. I didn't think you would. So if I didn't do it, and you didn't do it –”

“I know what you're going to say and it wasn't him.”

“And how do you know that?” Richard demands. He stands up suddenly, startling Aidan. “Because he's your friend?”

Aidan opens his mouth and no words come out. It's not like he's come prepared; he never seriously entertained the idea of this conversation actually happening.

“Because he's... not like that,” he says lamely.

“Christ, Aidan, what do you think I'm suggesting? That he'd purposely go out of his way to spite you? Look, maybe it was an accident, maybe it was a slip of the tongue, but either way it had to have been him. It can't have been anyone else! No one else knows!”

“Didn't they tell you who it was? At the meeting?”

“Of course they didn't tell me, it's completely against university policy –”

“Then how do they know that whoever told them isn't just lying?”

“They're not lying, though, are they?” Richard says quietly. “And when they asked me, I said yes.”

“You admitted to it?”

“What was I supposed to do, lie? Don't you think I've dug a hole deep enough? It's a wonder they're even letting me take up the offer in London, God knows where I'd be if I didn't have that to fall back on. It's only the fact that my record's been clean till now that they're very, very quietly suggesting it might be best if I take this new job. They're being incredibly generous about this, Aidan, and if I'd lied and they'd found out later then I don't... I don't know what the hell I'd do. And they'll be coming to speak to you about it very soon, and I'd appreciate it if you could cooperate and be honest with them.”

“Are they going to kick me out?” Aidan asks, in a voice he intends to be firm but which comes out as little more than a whisper.

“I wouldn't have thought so. You might be asked to re-submit your coursework, though.” Richard pauses. “I'm sorry, Aidan. I really am.”

Aidan stares hard at the ground. All this time he's been climbing some sunkissed hill, only to get to the top and have the heavens open on him, soaking him. He feels sick. He feels exhausted.

“It's not illegal, you're right,” Richard says softly, when Aidan doesn't speak. “But good universities never turn a blind eye to this sort of thing. Especially not in matters concerning undergraduates.”

He is Dr Richard Armitage again, and Aidan is puny and young. He looks up into tired blue eyes and searches for some knowing glint, some gleam of understanding. They look at him with something close to disappointment instead. Maybe it's not disappointment in him exactly, but it's enough to make Aidan hate himself right then, just a little bit. He turns and opens the door and leaves, and Richard doesn't stop him.

 

 

 

His shock has vanished by the time he gets home. It's been replaced by the kind of anger he doesn't feel very often, one which gives him the strength to have it out with anyone. A stranger. A friend. Aidan bangs through the front door to their house, which is already ajar, pushes through the packs of sweaty people littering the lounge, into the kitchen, out through the back door, finds Dean by the fence and grabs him.

“Aidan! You're finally here,” he says, clearly taking the gesture for something more friendly.

Aidan, who's never felt less friendly in his life, says, “I need a word.”

It's then that he notices the little group of people Dean's been standing with. There's a couple Aidan recognises from Adam's lot, one he knows to be some artist friend of Dean's, and then Luke, whose presence Aidan can't understand, and probably couldn't even if he had a clearer head and didn't feel like his insides were simmering.

“Can't it wait?” says Dean, apparently still unperturbed by the fact that a fair portion of his t-shirt is being clutched in Aidan's fist. “I'm just –”

“No, it can't. You know, I can't fucking believe you're being like this.”

That makes Dean stop. “Like what?”

“Like nothing's even happened. Or maybe you don't realise what exactly you've done yet. Because he's leaving now, Richard's leaving!”

“Where's he going?”

“To London! To fucking London, and it's all your fault.” Aidan lets go of Dean's t-shirt to shove him hard in the chest, and a collective gasp goes up around his little group of pals as they bolt, creating a space where Dean's back hits the fence hard. “You told!”

“Are you _drunk_?”

“I stood up for you. Everyone else thinks you're this irresponsible, careless little prick but I trusted you! And I stood up for you, and you ruined everything!”

There's a moment of silence as Dean clearly attempts to take in being told he's an irresponsible, careless little prick, during which time Luke steps in with his hands out in that insufferable matey-matey kind of way.

“Hey, come on guys, what's the problem?”

“Fuck off, Luke!” Dean barks, so abruptly another gasp goes up around the small circle like wildfire.

“Yeah, fuck off, Luke,” Aidan pitches in.

Someone switches the music off. It's possibly out of respect. More than likely it's to get a better listen. The summery sounds of Bruno Mars are abruptly cut, and they turn to each other again. Dean's face is darkened now and mean.

“Look,” he says quietly. “I don't know where the fuck this has come from, but I didn't tell anyone. So don't come here and start fucking everything up when you don't even know what the hell you're talking about.”

“Why are you lying?” Aidan asks, incredulous. “I know it was you, it can't have _been_ anyone else –”

“What would I even get out of that, why would I tell anyone?”

“I don't know! You have some kind of weird fucking crush on me perhaps?”

“What... what does that even mean?!”

“Or wait, no no no, I know, it's because you're _jealous_ , isn't it? Because when you finally got a piece of the person _you_ like, he didn't want anything to do with you, did he?”

Dean's face is a storm by now. Luke steps forward again, but this time his hands are lowered and he looks uncharacteristically meek.

“Dean?” he says softly. “What does he mean by that?”

“Oh, you still haven't told him?” Aidan laughs, though it isn't a bit funny. “That's precious. You know, it's funny, you're really good at keeping _some_ things to yourself, aren't you, Dean?”

In seconds, Dean's hands are on his shoulders, and suddenly their bodies are flipping in this one swift motion, and Aidan feels his back slam against the wooden panels of the fence so hard they rattle. Sometimes he underestimates Dean's strength, and this isn't a situation he feels readily equipped to deal with. He finds himself frozen by the look on Dean's face. He's livid.

“I don't know who told, but it wasn't me,” Dean says, firm and breathless and low. “I'm really sorry if your whole fucking fairytale is falling apart, but I didn't have _anything_ to do with it. So don't come here and try to humiliate me –”

“You're a liar!” Aidan snarls, and he wraps his fury round himself like armour and brings his arms up to shove Dean back a second time, wanting it to be hard enough this time to get the bastard to the ground. Desperate hands close around Aidan's arms and pull him away, and suddenly there's a familiar voice in his ear quite aside from the voices gossiping madly around them, and he turns and there's Adam and he's saying, “Please don't fight, Aidan, leave him alone, it was me, alright, it was _me_ ,” and for a moment Aidan can't see straight.

He looks around, and Dean isn't there anymore. But Adam is there, and he's saying something else now, asking Aidan not to hate him, please, and Aidan doesn't, of course, but he still feels himself drenched at the top of that hill. No, forget metaphors. He's hurting, badly. That's it.


	16. Chapter 16

The evening is as hot and clear as the day's been. The thick, sultry air rolls over Aidan's face as he sits on the garden wall at the front of the house, a lit cigarette dangling between two fingers. Adam, opposite, looks stricken. His mouth twitches.

“What, then?” Aidan asks tiredly.

He already decided before they came out here on to the empty street that he would carry on as he had with Dean, going on the offensive, converting misery into indignation. But in the face of Adam it's hard. He looks _scared_.

Aidan wants to tell Adam he won't hurt him, but he can't. And not because it isn't true – of _course_ it's true – but he doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Adam clearly thinks Aidan's on the edge of doing something terrible.

It's strange, but he isn't.

“I honestly didn't mean to,” is the first thing Adam says. “I really honestly did not mean to. But I can't even give you a good story or a reasonable explanation. I got terribly, terribly drunk. That's all.”

“That's all,” Aidan echoes hollowly.

“They wouldn't stop asking me questions. At the dance, I mean. They treat you like they're your friend, the Drama staff. I don't think I even realised I'd said it till they started giving each other these funny looks, like I'd ruined the mood.”

“But how did you _know_ , Adam?”

Adam sighs, shrugs. “Dean said it himself, didn't he? 'Everyone hears everything in this house'.”

“You overheard? You overheard and you never said anything?”

“What was I supposed to say? 'Oh by the way, you and Dean woke me up the other night coming back drunk from the pub and talking about all the great sex you've been having with your tutors, d'you want me to put the kettle on'? I didn't know what to think! All I knew was that you've been happier lately, and that you'd told Dean and not me. I knew there was a reason for that. You trust him and not me.”

“That's not it at all!”

“Aidan, it's fine, I know that's how it is. He's your best friend, encouraging you to do all the things you know you shouldn't be doing, and I'm just... I nag, and I lecture, and I'm a bore. I _know_ that, I know that's what you think of me, and I was determined that this time... _this_ time...”

He drops his head with a shaky breath, but Aidan touches his arm and when Adam looks up tears spring in his eyes.

“I'm sorry, Aidan, I'm really _really_ sorry. Just for once I wanted to do something that would keep you happy, and just for once I wasn't trying to spite you or do something for the 'greater good' but I ruined it all anyway.” He blinks, light lashes clumping, and wets his chapped lips. “It's like my brain can't keep up with my mouth sometimes.”

Adam looks so exhausted, so guarded in a way he hasn't since the very first time they met. The pessimist in Aidan might call it manipulation, but Adam isn't like that. He isn't like that at all. Aidan takes a slow breath and stubs his cigarette out on the garden wall.

“I think,” he says slowly, “I think I was looking for a reason to be mad because I knew Richard was gonna leave anyway. He's going to London, you know. For a new job. It threw me a bit. More than a bit.” He turns to look at Adam, who isn't looking back. “You don't have to worry about fucking things up, Adam. I've already done that. Richard's career, and Dean – Dean'll hate me.”

“Dean doesn't hate anyone,” Adam sniffs.

From the vibration of the loose bricks on the wall they're both sitting atop, Aidan can feel how badly Adam is shaking. He digs in his pocket for the crumpled Embassy packet and slides out his last cigarette. He puts it between Adam's lips and lights it for him and ruffles his hair because there's no use doing anything else. He doesn't want to do anything else.

“Happy birthday,” he says, and Adam nods and takes a long, deep drag.

-

Later, when Adam's gone back to the party and Aidan's kicking a deflated Mitre football against the garden wall, he hears behind him approaching footsteps. When he thinks they're going to pass by on to a house further up, there's a scrape of boot on concrete. He turns to see a man standing there, tall and broad and intimidating enough to make Aidan automatically lean and scoop the football up into his arms like a kid.

Yet in spite of the fact that a part of him is sure he's about to have the ball stolen and punctured for no good reason, another part of him thrums with instant recognition.

The man hesitates. “Does Dean live here?”

Aidan looks first at the house, as though to check, and then back to meet the nervous gaze. Nervous is not a word Aidan would normally associate with a man with such huge biceps, but it's right there in those blue eyes, kind of impossible to miss.

“Are you Graham?” he asks.

The man pauses before nodding. He smiles, but since Aidan isn't sure whether or not he's supposed to dislike him on principle he doesn't smile back.

“I'll go and get him for you,” he says, and he lets the football roll into the scrub of grass beside the house and goes inside.

It's quiet apart from the muffled hum of music coming from the back garden. He goes upstairs, and Dean's door, which is always at least slightly ajar, is shut tight. Aidan knocks on it and doesn't expect an answer and doesn't get one.

“Dean?” he says, to let him know who it is. Then he goes inside. Dean's sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, a mess of strewn papers and pencils all about him in a big circle. He's sketching. Aidan's sure, if he looked a little closer, the paper might well depict his own body in several violent and questionable situations. “Dean,” he tries again.

Dean doesn't react in any outward way, but Aidan's sure he can suddenly hear the drag of lead on paper, and he knows without even looking that Dean's clutch on the pencil has tightened.

“Look,” Aidan begins, but then he remembers why he's here and he goes back and tries again. “Graham's here to see you.”

Dean looks up at that. For a moment he narrows his eyes, as though he thinks Aidan's lying.

“Where is he?”

“In the garden. He's a big guy. You didn't tell me he was so scary looking.”

Hoisting himself up off the carpet, Dean keeps his head down and gently shoulders past Aidan and doesn't even bother telling him to get out of his room. Not that Aidan's keen to stick around; there's something about the total mess of papers that bothers him. Maybe it's just knowing that he's caused it.

On his way out he notices Dean's project propped against the chimney breast, ready to be wrapped for Monday. Aidan feels oddly touched and very miserable when he sees it. It's a familiar scene of straight lines and peeling paint and not-quite-charming shabbiness. The name of Dean's project was 'Joy'. He's painted their house.

-

Dean's outside for a long time. Aidan sits in the living room and counts the minutes till he loses track of them. He thinks about putting the TV on but he doesn't want to encourage anyone from the party to join him. Going back out to the party itself is out of the question.

In retrospect, ruining Adam's birthday makes him feel wretched. But maybe this means they're equal now. Sort of.

He can't see Dean and Graham out of the front window, which is good; he doesn't want to spy on them, but at the same time he wants to keep his eyes open for... well, just in case Richard –

The front door opens and closes gently, and Aidan sits up straight. Dean comes into the room, looking slow and dozy and soft. He's alone. Aidan waits for a reaction, for something he can't quite name but which he imagines would fall somewhere between a slap and a hug. It comes in the form of Dean sitting quietly on the couch beside him and it strikes Aidan like _ah right, yeah, that's the one_.

“Talk about bad timing, eh?” Dean says out of the blue.

“Well, you've seen the movies,” says Aidan quietly. “You've gotta have your love confession when everything else has gone to pieces.”

“Oh, is that what you think he was doing?”

But Dean doesn't elaborate and Aidan doesn't question it, and the rest of the story goes untold. The minutes tick by loudly on the watch Dean's still wearing and, as if he knows Aidan's looking at it, he sighs and loosens it and slides it off his hand.

“Adam invited Luke,” he explains, “clearly thinking we might get back together. I think Adam was more heartbroken about the break-up than I was. I should give this back.”

“It's a nice watch.”

“It _is_ a nice watch.”

Dean looks at it like he's considering putting it back on again. In the end he leans forward and slides it on to the coffee table. They slip back into that awful, humming silence then. When they do decide to speak it's exactly, and typically, at the same time.

“Sorry for –”

“I'm sorry about –”

Back to silence. Aidan looks across at Dean, and after a few seconds Dean looks back, not quite smiling but showing amusement, at least, that even if they've fought they can't break old habits too quickly.

“Why are _you_ sorry?” Aidan asks him. “You've nothing to be sorry for.”

“I'm sorry for being kind of a dick the past few weeks and for not helping out more around the house and making you feel like you couldn't trust me,” Dean blurts out in one big breath. “And I'm sorry about Richard, and I'm sorry for slamming you against the fence, and I'll, um, I'll pay for it if it's splintered. Although I think the hole in the linen closet last term was sort of the point at which we knew we wouldn't get our deposit back anyway.”

Aidan, despite himself, laughs.

“Right well, in that case...” He takes a fairly deep breath of his own, hands settled and splayed on his legs. “I'm sorry for, er... I'm sorry for yelling at you in front of everyone. And for calling you a... what was it? Like... insufferable, careless...?”

“Irresponsible, careless little prick,” Dean helpfully supplies.

“Right, thank you. Yeah, that. I'm sorry for that, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it at all. And I shouldn't have blamed you like that when it wasn't your fault.”

“To be honest, I probably would have blamed me as well.”

“I didn't mean it... about the crush thing either.”

They both go red and shut up for a moment. Naturally, Dean's the first to speak.

“Right, well that was fucking awful,” he says, standing up. “Glad that's out the way. Want a drink?”

It's a sweet way of trying to pretend something which isn't really fixed at all has had every last one of its holes stitched up. They're getting there, of course, but Aidan's certain that he hasn't mended this quite yet, that they'll need a lot more time and thread before that happens. But he accepts a drink anyway, and Dean comes back with two cold bottles and this time when they sit next to each other, their knees brush together.

“Apologising's thirsty work, huh?” Dean says, far too casually, and it's meant to make Aidan laugh but it sort of makes him feel worse, because Dean is going out of his way to be nice when Aidan doesn't really deserve it at all.

“Deano,” he says, and Dean pauses in lifting his bottle to his lips to look at him. Aidan brushes his knuckles against his shoulder. “You're my best friend.”

And Dean smiles and leans and clinks their bottles together. “Course I am.”

-

A week later, they break for revision. Going off last year's revision periods, Aidan doesn’t expect to get much studying done but, surprisingly, he kind of does. It's an easy way to take his mind off things, at any rate. In fact, it's sort of nice to spend the time alone, up in his bedroom with his thoughts and his books and his tea and the comforting hum of traffic noise and nothing else.

He finds his creased copy of 'Bright Star' and a week later writes a four-page essay on it with Richard's voice in mind. Two days later comes a paper on stuffy Victorian Literature. A week after that it's Lit and Film. A week after that they're getting ready to leave.

He's standing outside his house helping Dean haul his last case into a black cab, and it's so hot out that the sweat is literally dripping off their noses, and it's _glorious_. If it isn't like this in Dublin Aidan's getting the first ferry back again.

“Christ, what have you got in here?” he asks as they finally manage to shove the colossal case in and pull the boot down.

“Bodies,” Dean pants, hands on his hips. His wife-beater is so low and so loose he might as well not have bothered with it, and his hair is curling madly with sweat, and the shark tooth necklace he has on is actually imprinting itself against his damp, red skin. He looks every bit the boy Aidan saw in the winding queue at the Union two years ago. Hasn't grown an inch since either.

“What time's your flight?” Aidan asks.

“Like four or something.”

“'Like four or something'. You'd better check on that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'll figure it out.”

Aidan rolls his eyes.

“So. You're going next week?” says Dean, ignoring the cabbie's impatient glances from over the top of the cab.

“Yeah, a week on Friday. Adam's going the day after. It's better that way, you know he's good at making sure everything's unplugged. All the rest of the stuff's going into storage on Wednesday so you don't have to worry about any of that.”

Dean nods. “That's actually why I'm leaving early, I didn't want to help with that.”

“Yeah, I'd already figured that out.”

They look at each other. Aidan breaks first and smiles.

“Well.” Dean rubs his hands together. “Already said goodbye to Adam, so...” And then neither of them know what to do, so Dean sticks his palm out and after a moment Aidan takes it and they shake hands. “This feels really weird,” says Dean. “Let's stop.”

Immediately, their hands drop back to their sides.

“Go on then, leave me to go bake in your famous sun,” says Aidan, leaning against the car and absolutely sure he can feel the black metal _sizzling_. “Find some hot Kiwi bloke on the beach and make me superbly jealous.”

Dean snorts and grabs the passenger door. “I'm going back to winter, mate. You've got all the sunshine you need right here.” He looks like he might get in the car then, but he stops and straightens up again, hand on the roof. “As for the other thing, I think I'm kind of _off_ love for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” says Dean, and he squints against the sun thoughtfully. “You know when you come to uni and you think there are certain things you have to do to qualify as a student? You've gotta drink too much and eat too little and be in love and give a fuck about protests that won't matter a year from now? It's taken me a while, but I think I've started to realise that all that stuff is _such_ a fucking mess-around. Next semester I'm hanging up the boots.” He makes a fist and bumps Aidan's shoulder gently. “What do you think? You gonna join me?”

“Hmm.” Aidan pretends to consider it, and because he knows Dean makes 'I will stop drinking and start eating leafy vegetables' resolutions once every couple of months (usually in the midst of a worse-than-usual hangover) and because he _knows_ it's intended as a joke, this time he doesn't play along. “Not that I'm entirely opposed to this new and easy way of living,” he says, “I'm just not sure it's really you.”

“Really.”

“It's suggestive of a taming process, and you've always sort of been our little wild child.”

“That some roundabout way of saying I don't have morals, Turner?”

Aidan grins. “You left your morals behind in Auckland, Deano.”

“Ah, well. Maybe I'll bring 'em back with me next time.”

“I won't hold my breath.”

“Dick,” says Dean, and then he hugs Aidan hard, standing on tip toes. “Okay, my cab driver's about to fuck off with my stuff in his car so I'm going. Have an amazing summer in sunny Ireland and I will... I'll see you when I get back!” He slips into the car and pulls the door shut after him and adds through the open window, “I mean, I'll have to. We've renewed the lease now, it's a binding contract. Bye, Aid.”

“See you later, man,” and Aidan steps away from the curb and watches his best mate's cabbie get into the car with a huff and drive it off up the street and out of sight.

Aidan sits on the garden wall and knocks his feet gently against the brick, watching long after the car has disappeared. The westering sun shoots through the chimneys of the houses opposite, drenching him in gentle waves of heat, and he sighs, breathing in the warm, dusty summer smell.

He closes his eyes. A startling bed of daffodils, a boneless blue world of water, a brush of hands beneath a table in a pub garden thick with grass and summer's freshest smoke, a brush of blue cotton, a brush of careful lips; he feels all of it right then, pulsing indulgently around him a few slow seconds. Then he opens his eyes, and there's a car at the end of the street, and Richard's walking towards him.

“Hi,” Aidan says a little belatedly, blinking against the sight.

“Hello,” Richard smiles, a little shyly. “I wasn't expecting you to be out here. I'm glad, though, or I'm sure I would've forgotten which number house is yours.”

Aidan gestures towards the road. “I was just seeing Dean off.”

“He's gone then, has he?”

Richard's voice is tentative, which is to be expected. They've barely spoken since Adam's birthday – more down to time constraints than anything else, really – and as far as Richard's aware Dean is still a traitor. Aidan will set that right, but not at this very moment. He stands up, and feels in his chest a weight he's sure wasn't there moments ago.

“Adam and I are off in a week,” he nods. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Would you like to come in?”

The living room is not at all in the state it was the last time Richard was here. There are boxes piled high on every surface, most of them still empty but a few beginning to show signs of actually being used for packing. Their house isn't let during the summer, but a lack of insurance means that everything they aren't taking home has to go into storage. It's as much of a ballache as it sounds.

“Sorry, this is all... you know.” Aidan waves his arms a little vaguely at the mess. “But you can come upstairs.”

He leads Richard to the staircase and they take the steps two at a time. Aidan's bedroom is hot and suffocating, even with the windows wide open, but the tension between them is more stifling, even with the traffic noise from below cutting through the air. Aidan stands by the window and Richard stands by the door, as though he's unsure whether or not he's actually allowed in.

“Your room's lovely,” he says politely.

“Is it?” Aidan glances at the unmade bed and peeling movie posters. Leatherface looms over the blocked up fireplace. That's never failed to freak bedpartners in the past.

“Very tidy,” Richard elaborates.

“Oh, that's just because I've been packing. Honestly it's a right wreck normally!” Aidan laughs, nervously, and Richard smiles back.

“How were your exams?”

“Not bad, yeah. Bit too early to say.”

Richard nods. “Of course. I'm sure you don't want to think about it now, what with the whole summer stretched ahead of you, but I'm sure you've done really well.”

“Well, I hope so. I kind of want to come back in September.”

Another silence. Richard takes one step further into the room.

“I've missed you,” he says eventually. “Past couple of weeks have been hectic, haven't they?”

Aidan has a strange reaction to the words, like all the air fled from him before and now he's being slowly, clumsily brought back to life. The heavy feeling in his chest dissipates, replaced by something more permanent but infinitely lighter, more comfortable, like a coat wrapped tight in the rain. He nods a little shyly, meeting Richard's eyes.

“Pretty full-on,” he says. “I'll be glad of a rest. Though I s'pose you'll be busy, what with moving and all.”

He doesn't want to say it, but what Aidan wants to say and what he has to say seem to be converging less and less these days.

Richard nods. “They've set me up with a bedsit for now. A bedsit! Me! Can you imagine that? There'll be barely room to breathe.”

“What are you gonna do with all your books?”

“I toyed with the idea of storing them away for now, but I think we both know they'll end up acting as stand-ins for furniture. I'm already leaving enough behind as it is –” Richard seems to cut himself off suddenly, and his gaze darts down to the floor. “But that's in September. Three months till then.”

He cuts himself off a second time, as though confused by some deeper incapacity. The mood of delay makes Aidan nervous. He moves to cross the room at the same time Richard does, and they meet each other half way.

“You said you wanted to go to Rome,” Richard says in one big rush.

Aidan laughs. “I also said I wanted to go to Ibiza.”

“Right, well. I've only got tickets for Rome.”

“You haven't.”

“No, no, I have. I know it's a little impulsive but it's ridiculous, the prices creep up day by day. It's criminal, really. But I do have to make a living in London in a few months so I thought it best just to...” Richard swallows, hard, the bob of his Adam's apple visible. “Best to snap them up as soon as I could. I understand, of course, if you... well, if you don't want to go with me, but they're unrestricted tickets so any time you're available I can reserve a flight and... what else – God, it's hot in here, isn't it?”

“Richard, why are you even asking if I want to go with you? Of course I want to go with you!”

“Do you?” And Richard looks so _relieved_ that Aidan wants to tackle him on to the bed then and there. “I'll be honest with you, Aidan, I'm really rather pleased to hear that because I'm... oh bloody hell, I'm buggering this up royally, aren't I?”

“Buggering _what_ up?”

Richard shakes his head, those blue eyes closing for one brief moment.

“I have had this conversation in my head for years. Long before I met you – Christ, back when _I_ was a student. I had this ambition, this – this ridiculous notion that one day I would find the person that I cared most about and I would go to their door and I would say something in the words of a man who could say it a thousand times better than me. I would recite Byron or Yeats or – or, God, I don't know, Sonnet 116. Because I really thought that was the best way I could express how I felt. That's how I've always expressed myself, by hiding behind _other_ people. And then it happened, all this happened, and now my mind... it's blank. Honestly, it's like a slate wiped clean, and I can't think of any way to tell you how I feel other than by saying that I can't stop thinking about you.”

Aidan makes a small, punched-out noise in the back of his throat. He looks at Richard now and feels something new and interesting that he's sure has never been there before. It leaves him quiet for a moment. There are a million and one sentences swimming through his mind. All he has to do is pick one.

“Well,” he says, “I'm sure your big speech was dead lovely and all but really, Rich, that was just fine.”

Richard lets out this long breath like he's been holding it for years. “Really?”

Aidan steps forward so the gap between them is good and snugly closed, and leans up on to tip toes to lean their foreheads gently together.

“Yeah, definitely.”

Their lips brush, tentative from allowing weeks of being apart to shake their practiced ease. But then Aidan clings to Richard, pressing against him suddenly and painting him with kisses. And still, it's only Richard's arms around him, the hand on the back of his head like a promise, that satisfies some hunger Aidan has no name for.

What good's poetry now? He has no words. None at all.


	17. Epilogue

_Adam,_

_This must be the only hotel in the whole of the Italian Peninsula without Wi-fi. I'm sure that's somehow illegal, but apparently it adds to the ambience of the place. Anyway, I know you're something of a Luddite (don't roll your eyes/deny it) and you love getting letters, so here you go – enjoy it._

_Italy is hot. You wouldn't like that. But there are a lot of buildings and 90% of them are painted with something incredible, so you'd probably like that. Dean definitely would. Richard does, too. Yesterday we spent so long going round the Roman Forum, and it was fine at first but honestly, once you've seen one ruin you've seen them all. But Richard was so cute running round with his camera looking earnest I didn't really mind that my body was actually shutting down from the boredom._

_He's fine, thanks for asking (cos I know you were). A few days ago we tried holding hands in the city centre but there's a lot of Catholics in Rome (weird that, isn't it?) and we got a lot of strange looks and, well... let's just say you were very nearly sans one housemate for a few scary moments._

_But last night we went to a dossier area – kind of like the place we live in – and we found the Italian version of The 'Pit and basked in the company of our kind. This sleazy Italian bloke got down on one knee and gave me a fake rose and asked me if I wanted “una botta e via”. Dunno what that means but Rich informs me it ain't classy._

_His face was a picture, it was totally hilarious. We tore the rose up and tossed it in the Trevi Fountain afterwards. Don't know if you're allowed to do that (maybe you're only allowed to do it backwards?) but thought you'd appreciate it all the same – it was a very Meg Ryan moment, I think._

_Anyway, thing is, Rome's gorgeous but don't worry, I still miss you and our house and even O'Gorman a little bit. Can you believe that? I really do hope you're having an ace summer. We went out for dinner last night so I checked the weather (I know, five minutes of Wi-Fi and I use it to check YOUR bloody weather) and it looks like this weekend's gonna be good to you. Go somewhere nice!! Go to the Lakes. Actually, go to Stratford-upon-Avon, you're always going on about it. Or you can wait till term starts and we can all go together._

_But we should meet up before next semester anyway, okay? I'd invite you to mine but it'd probably be more of a chore than a nice treat. Personally, I'm still holding out on an invitation to Auckland. Yeah, we should be so lucky._

_Anyway, gotta go stuff my face with pizza now. I know you were hoping for me to quell your jealousy some by telling you that Italian food is seriously subpar but, well, it's not. It's excellent. Sorry!_

_Still, I'm sure the weather's doing wonders for your tomato plants in Berkshire, you've really nothing to complain about. I can't wait to see you. Enjoy the sunshine._

_Aidan_


End file.
